Nightmare
by George Wolker
Summary: You know how it is with dreams, good dreams, part of you knows it's all fake but if you are really lucky you don't wake up. Too bad the same can't be said about nightmares... Winter, Kyon and Haruhi got locked in school and things started to happen.
1. Lieros

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi was first created by Nagaru Tanigawa and published by Kadokawa Shoten.  
It is owned/licensed by its respective owners who had to pay for the license. In other words, not by me.  
This is a fanwork made by fans for fans.  
No money was made in production of this work.

_A/N: No funny disclaimer!? You'll get over it, anyway this story has a very slow beginning so it might or might not suprise you, and that is the entire reason. For those who don't want to read through a lot of text and get what they didn't expect this is Haruhi and Kyon centered, not in a fluffy kind of a way - it's winter and they get trapped in the school building. Get my drift? And one more thing, it is horror. It won't describe any graphical violence so I guess it's ok to rate it T, but that might change... Reviews are kindly accepted, thanks for them in advance. I don't know what else to say, so just sit down and enjoy this (fairly long) chapter! Oh yeah, thanks for reading!_

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Chapter 1: Lieros

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I had a dream.

In it a human sized lizard with a crown on its head bent over and began to launch hamsters out of 'You know where'. The furry projectiles traveled a several hundred meters and then exploded. The process was then repeated a few times as new 'ammo' was 'reloaded'. At this point I knew that it was dream. Weird, disturbing and extremely confusing. I guess you wonder why I didn't wake up violently drenched in sweat. I think it has something to do with what I encounter on daily basis, in other words the ridiculous and explicit things had become a routine for me. So I can't be surprised even by things that my imagination is able to sprawl up. Some of my worst dreams had become reality. I'm like a war veteran that won't flinch at the sight of blood, yeah it went that far.

Talking about war, is it just me or do I hear gunshots?

The scene with the lizard vanished and it got dark. I knew I was dreaming, yet there was a machine gun rattling somewhere. On and on, it went on forever, the gunner never reaching the end of the belt. Unlimited ammo. Damn it's annoying! Can't he find some other place to shoot, people are trying to sleep! And then I felt impact of something heavy on my chest, as if something fell on me. Was it some body the machine-gunner downed? I imagined myself hiding in a trench trying to return the fire when suddenly, hearing the ugly sound of human meat erupting, it kicks back some advancing soldier, the body falling over me.

But if that was true, the dead body certainly wouldn't start start jumping on me.

"All right," I slurred. "I'm getting up. So cut out the trampoline act."

She stopped jumping, and the gunshots stopped. "That took a while, what exactly were you doing yesterday Kyon?"

It took some effort to open my glued eyes, my sister was standing beside me on the bed ready to continue. Already experienced with waking me up she wouldn't let me fall asleep again, so she stood there at attention beside me like some aggressive bloodhound ready to bark and tear flesh if you go over the fence.

Why couldn't it be a dead body as I initially thought?

I pulled myself up and felt as if I just got out from a wrecked car. My back hurt, I felt dizzy, bones in my ribcage hurt and it was cold as hell. I know that's quite common during winter, but man it was cold. I might as well use our refrigerator to heat myself up. And why is it this cold, inside? Wasn't the heater on?

"Kyon you don't have time to sit around pulling the covers over yourself, you'll be late for school." She said as she jumped off my bed.

Sometimes having two mothers just irks me out of my mind. I mean, I am older right?

"Meh," I answered with gratitude I often present right after I'm pulled out of slumber.

"I told you the alarm wouldn't work didn't I," She flashed her teeth. "You're lucky mom told me to wake you up anyway."

"Alarm? What are you talking about? I don't have any alarm clock."

I really didn't. Trust me, I wouldn't buy such an unholy thing.

"You don't remember? You set some weird ringtone on your cellphone and said 'That ought to wake me up!'" She mimicked the pose I did yesterday.

I picked up my phone. "So that's why I heard gunshots. But why did I set it in the first place? I never do."

"I don't know," She said leaving the room. "But you'll be late if you don't go now Kyon!"

I looked at the phone again. Yeah, if I didn't eat breakfast I would still be late. Just how long was the thing going off before she woke me up? Sometimes I wonder if I sleep or if I am in a coma... nevermind that, gotta go.

I jumped off the bed, threw the things I needed for the lessons that took place in my bag. I dressed, there was no time to take a shower or to brush my teeth or anything like that, I just randomly grabbed some food off the table and went out.

When I opened the front door, I was punched right into my face.

I was punched by mother nature, and it was a knockout.

Cold so brutal it was almost unreal. Maybe it had to do something with the fact that just five minutes ago I was still under my warm pleasant blanket. But still... I hoped to God – no, scratch that let's just say I hoped - that it wasn't because of certain someone. It was white everywhere, my sister wasn't jumping all cheerful around over the fact that it's snow outside so I gathered it happened over night.

"Kyon! There's snow everywhere!" I heard her shouting from the house.

Here we go.

"Well, better get moving."

I left hoping to avoid all that 'snow outside' stuff, including building up snowmen and a snowball fight. Things which had become a sort of ritual for my sister, she always wanted to play around in it with me. No matter the school and such unimportant things... But she still had to wake me up. There's something wrong with that.

Anyway, I left as fast as I could.

The snow wasn't so deep, it was bound to melt by noon. At least according to the forecast I watched with my parents yesterday.

As the angle of the road before me changed I began the mountain climb.

It wasn't that bad today though.

No new snow fell and the sky was clear. The air was cool, not that cold anymore and if I didn't take such a thick jacket I wouldn't reek of sweat by now. Young kids that didn't have to go to school played around. Even some high school students couldn't resist. The scene seemed too serene, too innocent. Something was coming, something dark and confusing. I knew it. It always did. Everything good or normal was turned bad and absurd. The simple and happy things will soon change into a mess of things I don't even want to imagine. Two words Suzumiya Haruhi. All the explanation you need.

"Appearances can be deceptive." I frowned.

Even though it was frozen, it was still hell.

"Okay maybe I'm overreacting, maybe today nobody would want to do anything bad and things will stay just as normal as they are now."

I hope.

As I neared the school, I couldn't see anyone who I knew. Nobody sneaked up on me suddenly. In fact nobody from the school even walked the streets anymore. I looked at my watch.

Great.

The first lesson already started. I kicked the ground and ran.

-

Gasping for air, panting and wheezing I finally got there. I stood before the door to my classroom trying to center myself and hold down my ragging breathing. You don't exactly run uphill that fast everyday. My back was wet with sweat and I still couldn't catch my breath. The muscles in my legs hurt and I barely kept myself up.

Am I really that rusty?

I finally built up enough courage and opened the door to my classroom. At first the students there looked bored out of their mind, some yawing, some even sleeping, some paying attention to the class. Haruhi was looking out of the window, but as she heard the door opening she looked in my direction. Well, everyone did.

And the boring atmosphere changed rapidly. The former sleeping students laughed their asses off and those who paid attention to the teacher were now snickering right into my face. Haruhi laughed so hard she had to hold down her stomach and almost fell down along with her chair.

"Sorry there were some problems on the way, I-" I tried to make some lame excuse to the teacher, but he just pointed to my seat closing his eyes.

Feeling like a clown I made my way toward my place.

Some students even brought up their hands trying to high five with me. I did, then I almost fell down to my seat as some joker brought up his leg to trip me. Yeah, funny as hell. I made my way to my desk and sat down.

"Kyon, got hit by a car didn't he?" Someone shouted loud and the whole class laughed again.

"Yeah he looks like a chipmunk someone ran over!"

Feeling the glee I turned to the class frowning as much as I could. It didn't help, in fact it only amplified the laughter. Oh, well. I propelled myself at the desk.

The day started just wonderfully, didn't it? Nevermind, I'll just bore myself to sleep.

Something stabbed me in my back. Not this again. I just pretended I didn't feel it. It stabbed me again, probably going through my clothes. The next time it happened it sank into my flesh.

I shot up. Then turned around like nothing happened, acting cool. "Yeah?"

Haruhi wasn't so cheerful anymore, she seemed rather angry with something.

"Isn't it polite to greet your friends when you meet them?" She said staring into my eyes.

I shrugged, "I didn't know you were into etiquette that much. Well whatever, better get this over with."

"Hi." I said and went back to sleep.

Now she hit me with her fist.

"I'm still talking with you!" She hit me again, "I demand your full attention right this instant!"

I sighed, you can't fight the deity. I decided that it would be safer to just listen to her. Why? I don't even need to explain, do I? She's like a bundle of C4 that's harmless until you do the one thing that trips it. Whatever that is.

I turned to her again. Waiting for the outburst of absurdness about what we'll do after school.

"Go straight to the clubroom today, we have an important mission to complete and I need every available hand." She spit out words I expected right into my face, "Even people as useless as you, Kyon!"

Almost tricked me there, I thought you'll forget to insert the insult.

Of course she didn't, it's the same talk everyday. Only she says it differently each time.

"Is that all?" I said after she was silent for a while.

"Just one more thing, don't you know that old proverb that the early bird catches the worm?" She said putting on an motherly expression.

"And the second mouse gets the cheese, my mom told me all about those." I said, "Is that all you wanted to tell me?"

"Yeah, that's everything."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah!" She crossed her arms looking to her side, obviously irritated.

"Well excuse me then, I really can't afford to miss this lesson with my grades."

I turned around and went back to sleep.

-

The faint sound of the bell reached me in my sleep, but wasn't enough to wake me up. The next thing I remember was the feeling you have right after your head collides with the ground. Somebody took the whole desk and turned it over so I would fall down. You don't exactly have to be Sherlock to figure out who. As I turned over on the ground and put my hands under my head to sleep down here, I realized how it feels when someone kicks you in the stomach as you're lying on the ground. You know what I mean, like in the action movies. How many more wonderful feelings will I experience? Then something pulled me up by my tie, which finally made me open my eyes.

"Just what exactly do you think you're doing!?" Haruhi shouted.

I couldn't shake the thought that our roles were a little reverted.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" I narrowed my eyes pulling out one of my serious faces.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm waking you up, it's lunch time already!" She shook with me as if to make sure I don't fall asleep. "You've slept through almost entire day!"

She let go of my tie and I steadied myself.

"And look at you! You look pathetic!" Haruhi commented the fact that I looked like a beggar, "At least straighten your uniform!"

I started straightening my tie. Then she ruffled my hair with her left hand combing it with her fingers. Why would she do that? With a corner of my eye I could see the classmates around, they were smiling and pointing at me. It probably looked as if we were in some kind of relationship. Great, now I'll be the talk of the class. Haruhi was done and stepped back to inspect me.

"Did you brush your teeth today?" She asked looking into my eyes.

I shook my head.

She put her hands on her hips, "Thought so, at least go buy some gum later okay."

I nodded.

I felt like a child that was going out and his mother tried to make him look better. That would make the number three on my list if I'm not mistaken.

She then put her attention back to my hair. I felt my heart skip as she licked her palm and shuffled my hair a little more.

Just what the hell is she thinking. People will misunderstand. I looked at Taniguchi. People _do_ misunderstand!

"That's better, now you can represent our club to the fullest." She said, adding, "Since I helped you look better of course."

Right.

I pointed to her chest. She looked down on my finger, as she did I pulled my hand up touching her nose. The oldest trick in the book. But you got caught Haruhi.

"Thanks mom." I said.

She looked somewhat shocked and confused as her eyes widened.

"I'm not your mom..." She looked away almost blushing.

"You sure act like her." I smiled and pulled up my desk and the stuff that was sprawled all around the floor.

I picked up my bag and took out the food I managed to grab this morning. One plain roll, great.

You maybe ask yourself why I did that to Haruhi. She's a bundle of C4, right? Let's just say that I leveled up to the point where I know what I can afford around her. I had become the bomb squad member. I started pulling these harmless things that won't make her change the world when I realized that there was no competition. She can do what she wants with us, but we can't? I just couldn't swallow that. If there wasn't any poetic justice or karma or whatever to make the things she pulls on us come back to her, I decided that I would. I know it's just a feeble attempt, these worthless little tricks can't compare to hers. But it's still better than nothing.

I looked at my bag. And besides the thing I'm planning to do is far from a feeble attempt...

I ate the plain roll just sitting there observing the class. Some students were preparing for the next lesson, which basically meant two things: doing the math homework or copying the math homework. Oh, reminds me that if I get another bottom grade I'll probably fail in the subject. I put my hands behind my head. Like that's supposed to scare me or something. I continued to watch the crowd, each holding a notebook and trying to write as much as they could. Yeah crowd, pretty suiting if you ask me. From afar it looked like a bunch of crows trying to tear their chunk of meat from some decaying cadaver. At least the lesson will be accelerated, with everyone having the same mistakes the teacher will get mad as hell.

I almost jumped as something slammed against my desk. "Just be sure to make a few mistakes, I mean it would look weird if you got A+."

There was Haruhi standing above my desk and there was her notebook on it. Am I that predictable?

"What makes you think I didn't do it?" I asked out of curiosity.

Her smile spread from ear to ear, "Don't make me laugh, like you ever do."

"In fact I'm not sure if I saw you write anything in your notebook the past year." She said, "You're slacking off too much, you'll fail the damned subject!"

"What's it to you?" I said meeting her eyes, "Are you tracking my grades or something?"

She just 'hmphed' and closed her eyes. "Dream on, I wouldn't go that low. It's pretty obvious that you're the bottom of this class. Everyone with eyes can see that."

Sure. Everyone with eyes tracking my grades.

I just closed my eyes and smiled, "You think you can read me like a book, huh?"

I lazily reached my bag and took out my notebook. I opened it slowly, making a dramatic pause.

"Oh, what's that?" Then I played a shocked face, "Isn't that?"

She frowned, "You're enjoying it too much."

Yeah, I did the homework yesterday. Even I when I'm failing in something just take a moment to sit down and analyze the situation, then do something about it... Okay, my father asked about my grades the day before yesterday and found out. So I had to do the homework, along with hours of doing hundreds of assignments from the book.

I scanned her notebook. I think the work actually paid off, we got to the same result.

"But you're still in debt with me, even this counts." She said with a grin.

What?

"Why are you so surprised, I don't do this kind of thing for free." She exclaimed taking back her notebook, "In fact you're lucky that I decided not to punish you for embarrassing me in front of class."

Embarrassing you, how? By doing my homework?

If she cashed every debt that I have with her, I wouldn't be able to pay up even if I won a freaking lottery. Things can go wrong if you actually do your homework for once.

"Then let's make it official." I reached out my hand, "Let's shake hands to confirm the deal."

She nodded and reached out hers. But just as she was about to hold mine, I pulled my hand up and she grabbed empty air.

"Fine. Debt it is then." I said. "Hope you're not planning to hire some executors."

She was about to explode right there and blaze me to hell...

But then the bell rang and she calmed down and cared about her own business again. I did the same.

I was right, the teacher spent the whole lesson testing the copycats so I was safe. And I actually enjoyed those faces they were giving me because I did mine myself.

But still it was boring, Math and all that - you know what I mean. So I just sat through it.

For the first time in god know how long I actually looked forward to the club. Well... not that much, just a little I guess.

The bell rang and Haruhi ran toward the thing she cared about the most, the SOS brigade. I just gathered my things calmly. There was no point to rush, I would be penalized anyway. Even if I teleported there somehow. Yeah, like 'Penalty! You're here sooner then your chief!'

Did I say I looked forward to the club? I did? Well now I don't. I was jealous of all those students just walking out of the building heading home or to normal clubs. I wanted to go home too. Just have a normal day, take a little break.

In retrospect, I should ran right home right at that moment and hide myself under my blanket. Instead I went to the other building like every other day. Ignorance was bliss. I didn't know what was coming to me, yet.

I opened the door, "Hey, Asahina-san."

She was there already changed just about to boil some water. Now that I think about it, I didn't even thought it was odd for her to wear a maid outfit anymore. Guess I just got used to it.

"Oh, Kyon-kun." She turned around, "It's nice to see you again."

And she smiled. Did I say I wanted to go home? Really?

Haruhi wasn't there probably searching the school or something, but Nagato sat in her corner as always. This time she didn't read anything thick, that got my attention. In fact it was as thin as a magazine, but was too small to be one. Just some small book.

"Hey Nagato, whatcha reading?" I greeted her.

She flipped a page, "I have no mouth and I must scream."

"Huh?"

"That is the title of this book." She said scanning the page.

Right...

I decided not to push it further.

As I sat down I noticed that even Koizumi was nowhere to be found. Work, probably. In his case work of course meant saving the world from being recreated. Maybe I should stop confronting Haruhi for a while. Well, screw it. If it was serious he would have called me and besides she didn't look depressed to me today.

I opened my bag and pulled out the little box.

"What is that, Kyon-kun?" Asahina-san turned from making her tea looking at the box.

"This? Oh it's nothing important." I said.

As she turned back to brewing her tea, I climbed up on the table and reached the tiles on the ceiling. Nagato didn't react at all and Asahina-san didn't hear me. The tiles were loose, just a cheap pieces of plywood covering the ceiling. But there was a gap between the wood and the ceiling. I pulled one tile up and put the box up in the gap. Just as I was about to open it the door opened and Koizumi walked in.

"Good afternoon Itsuki-kun... what are you doing?" Asahina-san started to greet him, then noticed what I was doing.

"Heh, well... kinda hard to explain." I didn't know what to say.

"Pilling up work for me?" Koizumi asked, "We need to talk about that."

Of course we do.

I jumped down and took the box with me.

Koizumi sat down, "Maybe you don't understand the damage you are causing by these simple things."

"I just got back from closing a rather large closed space and you are already planning on constructing another one."

He smiled.

"What is he talking about Kyon-kun?" Asahina-san asked me, putting on that hurt-child kind of face.

I told her, I have no idea.

"Tell her about those crickets in that little box you are holding and what you tried to put under the ceiling tiles." Koizumi smiled on.

"C-Crickets?" I could see tears well up in her eyes.

Yeah, I did plan to do that, because it would drive Haruhi mad. The crickets would spread there and start their little squeaking or whatever and she would be running around the room trying to find them while growing so angry she would... destroy the world.

"I think you do not understand the effect it could have on Suzumiya-san." He kept on smiling.

"All right I guess I would go too far with this one." I said putting the box back on the table, "But just imagine it, she would tear down, _TEAR_ down every piece of furniture in this room and then-"

"Yes, and then we would all disappear due to her remaking the world." He said, "Or crickets would disappear from all over the world and would never exist as an animal again."

I know.

"It's just a joke..."

"I understand how you feel Kyon-kun, you just want to get back to her somehow for all the things she's done to us. But you can't pull practical jokes on your God, can you?" He said.

All right, I put the box back in my bag.

Asahina-san was looking down on her feet as she gave me her tea, Koizumi smiled, his smile looking faker then ever and Nagato just read her book.

"So everyone thinks I'm an idiot now?" I said.

Asahina-san was silent, Koizumi kept smiling and Nagato flipped a page.

Cool... Yeah, it was kind of stupid. Like if I tried to push the red button of some ICBM - unleashing armageddon upon earth. Too extreme to be pulled on someone that can do everything on a whim. Guess I was just too damn excited about it to realize what I was doing.

Then the door blew, no that would be an understatement, exploded open.

"Great news!! I have a mystery for us to solve!!" Haruhi shouted without actually greeting anyone, "Let's go everyone!"

She grabbed me and just as she flew in, she flew out.

"Wait, where are we going!?" I tried to break free.

"To the photography club, they have something that they don't want the outside world to see!!" She shouted.

"What do you mean?" Why was I even trying, "What do they have?"

"I'm not sure if it is real, but if they go through such lengths to hide it..." She made an epic pause, "It has to be true!!"

Then she stopped and I finally broke free. But she was already kicking down the door to the Photography club. That was fast.

The startled members all jumped, one tripped sprawling photos all over the floor.

"Allrite! We're here to seize the videotape! Come out with your hands up so that you may be shot without mercy!!" She shouted putting her hands on her hips.

We don't have guns...

The members just started to scream and flee in terror probably familiar with what happened in the computer club. I wondered if those computer fellas told them... or if it was just Haruhi's fame.

"Maybe we could try not to blackmail this time?" I tried to keep things calm.

She turned to me displeased, "What do you mean, 'We could try not to blackmail this time?' That's crazy talk! This isn't some stupid conversation piece, you know. Time for Carnage!"

Some guy crawled out from under desk and tried to run away, "No! It's her! She came for us! Run for your life!!"

Haruhi put on her smile, "Relax, we won't hurt you, we just want the videotape. NOW HAND IT OVER!!!"

"Please don't make pictures of me grabbing that girl's chest!" He cried pointing at Asahina-san, " Please-please-please-please-please-please-pah-leeze! I'm too young to go to jail!"

"Fine." She crossed her arms, "Give us the tape or Nagato here will suck your brains out with a long sharp metal straw!"

"What?" Is she making an alien out of her now? Wait...

"Yes she will." Haruhi said to me then turned back to the guy, "Now give us the tape, uber-nerd, or your skull will suffer the grisly consequences!"

"I'll do anything you want!!" He shouted kneeling down before her.

"What the hell is this with brains?" I repeated myself not getting any answer.

She's making Nagato alien now, not knowing that she is an alien.

"Why, I don't think I've ever seen her so thirsty for brains." She pointed her TM finger at him, "You better come up with that tape soon, or she'll be drinking your gray matter like... well, like a brain sucking alien."

"I am not going to feast on his brain matter." Nagato said calmly.

"You are so going to suck his brains." Haruhi turned to Nagato now, "And you'll damn well like 'em too!"

The guy tried to sneak past them while Haruhi was arguing, I stepped aside not really trying to stop him.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, MISCREANT!" Haruhi shouted pointing at him.

"Aiee!!" He jumped back covering his head.

At this point I sighed, she actually made a guy that was older than me squeak like a little girl.

"I've got the Producer." Then Koizumi entered dragging some other guy with glasses.

That asshole, I didn't know he would keel this deep to kiss her ass this low.

"Outstanding. Hundred points to you." She said to Koizumi, then turned to the guy with glasses, "Give us the videotape or get your brains sucked four-eyes!"

This one was actually more calm then the first, "What videotape, the ComicCon segment?"

"No."

"The Evil Clown piece?"

"No."

"Our project from middle school?"

"God, no."

"The Haunted Strip Club?"

"No, but we'll take a copy of that one." She said still beaming, "What we want is... The Hamster Cannon footage."

What!?

The guy stepped back, "You... sick... bitch..."

"What? It's just strippers! And it's for promotion only!" Haruhi said.

"No, I meant the hamster thing." He was getting irritated.

"Oh, that... We just want to check the myth." She closed her eyes, "So stop stalling and give it to us already."

He looked down, his eyes shadowed, his face spreading into a freaky grin, "Fine, you sick bastards may have won this round, but the truth will come out someday and you'll all be exposed for the sick bastards that you are! You'll see! You'll see! You'll all see!"

"Whatever, let's go back to the clubroom to play it." Haruhi brushed it as nothing.

We watched the Hamster Cannon footage. And it was true, that dream I had. It was all true. Everything, the lizard, the launching part, explosions and reloading. I didn't know if it was CG or real, but I still wanted to vomit.

Some nightmare, right? Well... we're just getting started.

After that Asahina-san and I were recovering and Haruhi along with Nagato began the frame-by-frame analysis of the material. But she didn't know how to get the footage from the tape to computer so I had to look at the pictures again. I'll get you for this Haruhi! I'll get you...

So I ripped it, using the hybrid dvd/vrc recorder she confiscated some time ago, on the hard drive. And then we began going through each second of it.

It was long and horrifying work that'll be rewarded with nothing but me getting a penalty for some trivial thing.

I noticed that it started to snow outside.

-

As she insulted me for hundredth and one time that day I heard Nagato closing her book. Thank God. I closed the program and began to pack.

"What do you think you're doing, Kyon!?" Haruhi glared at me, "We're not finished yet, open it up again!"

At this point my left eye twitched. I turned back to the screen. Before the end of the day I'll be a nutcase for sure.

And why it had to be just me anyway? What about the others?

Asahina-san, Koizumi and Nagato excused themselves said their regards and left us there alone.

So it was just Haruhi and me, and we worked and worked.

I had to look at each snapshot, pixel by pixel so Haruhi could put her seal of approval on the fact that it's fake. Every second went past as an hour and we still didn't find anything.

It was late afternoon when she finally grew tired of it and started to pack.

"Guess it's fake after all..." She sighed, "Let's go home. Delete it, I don't want to watch it ever again."

"With pleasure." I deleted it, shut down the computer and picked up my stuff.

"Damn... I forgot my notebook in class." Haruhi said and left the room walking as a apathetic corpse.

It probably got to her, not finding anything unusual about it and stuff. Well I on the other hand felt refreshed and relieved so I decided to take my chance and just leave very quickly.

I got to my locker, changed shoes, got my jacket and was about to leave.

But I stopped, holding the front door open.

Something inside my mind clicked. I can't just leave like that, I told myself. So I let the door close and went back to the building. If I look at the mistakes I made at this point, that was probably the biggest. I should have taken my chance and leave right there. But I was a stupid fool blinded by a flickering bit of sympathy I so suddenly felt for Haruhi.

As I walked through the hallway back toward our classroom I looked out of the window. Outside the snow fell like ash from post-apocalyptic sky. I never seen snowflakes that big before. Forecast was a little off that day. That had to pile up.

I met Haruhi in the hall going out of our class.

"Did you get it?" I asked.

"Well, I just realized I had it in my bag from the start." She said looking out of the window, "Wow looks pretty bad, I thought they said it wouldn't last."

"Yeah, we better hurry." And that was it, we stopped talking at that point.

Expect.

"So why didn't you leave...?" She mumbled, almost a whisper.

I pretended I didn't hear it, "Did you say something?"

"N-nothing."

And that was it.

We came to the door and I opened it... wait.

"What are you doing just open the door." She grew impatient behind me.

I pushed again. No. No, not possible.

"I can't." I said, "It's stuck, probably froze shut."

Now I frantically tried to pull it open, but no matter how much force I used I couldn't.

Fuck.

"You mean you really are that weak?" Haruhi exclaimed pulling up her sleeves, "Step aside you useless little girl!"

I stepped aside, "Knock yourself out Hogan."

At first she tried calmly, but then grew just as desperate as me. Then she turned around like nothing happened, brushing herself.

"Nevermind, there has to be another way out." Haruhi started to walk away not waiting for any sort of reply.

I tried to keep calm.

I placed my hands together, fell on my knees, looked up and started to pray, "Please God, if you're there and you're not Haruhi... if you're the all-knowing, all-capable... just let me the hell out of here."

I really tried.

"Come on! What are you doing there, do you really want to leave!?" Came from the hall.

There is no God. Just Haruhi. She murdered him. Or he committed suicide.

I took a deep breath and stood up, no point in pitying myself.

We tried every exit even the emergency ones with no luck. Either they were frozen too, or just locked. We couldn't open any windows either. After that Haruhi got so irritated she grabbed a chair and smashed it against a window. But it didn't break.

"Remember that speaker incident when you tried to find aliens among people in this school with a loud guitar riff?" I knocked on the window, "I wouldn't be surprised if these are bulletproof."

"Hmph!" She pouted, "Like you're trying to do something to get us out of here!"

I shrugged, "What am I supposed to do?"

"Call someone! You have your cell don't you? I forgot mine home." She actually had a point this time.

I pulled out my phone, it was dead.

"No battery."

She grabbed it and smashed it against the window. As I watched my phone break into pieces I suddenly felt very calm and collected. In fact I started to smile.

Now, _now_ we were truly screwed.

I opened my bag to show her something, "Recharger. Planned to recharge it at the club, but didn't have the time."

"So what? Nobody would come in this weather anyway." She turned her back to me crossing her arms.

I unzipped my jacket breaking into a laughter.

"Is that the only excuse you're able to come up with? What about the police?" If we called them, they would have to come here, "Besides you owe me a new cellphone."

She completely ignored my comment, "We can still try the school's telephones, let's go to the teacher's room."

Just as she finished talking the lights started flickering then went out.

Just our luck. The day was just getting better and better.

It was still afternoon, so it wasn't dark yet.

I didn't panic, I felt this was coming the moment I stepped outside my house. I don't know how, I just knew something would go wrong.

"What was that!?" But Haruhi jumped.

"Must be the circuit breaker, I guess the power went out because of the weather, happened before." I reassured her and put my bag on the ground.

"Where are you going!?" Haruhi sounded almost as if she didn't want to be left alone.

"To the basement, to get the power running again." I said not stopping, "You can go ahead and find a phone to call for help or are you scared?"

"Of course I'm not scared!!" I heard her put her bag down, "I'm coming with you, we can call for help later!!"

Afraid of being left alone, huh?

"N-no, of course not!" Haruhi made a pause, thinking about what to come up with next, "To the basement!!"

And she went.

Whatever.

As I opened the door to the basement we saw wooden stairs leading down into the absolute darkness. There were cobwebs around the door.

Haruhi looked over my shoulder, "So I'll just stay here and cover your back, so no murderer would try to attack you from behind."

I sighed. All right, better than having you along.

I just gave her the most angry face I could muster and dove down into the darkness. The stairs were old, creaking along with my every step. I tried not to think about it breaking and me falling down twisting my neck. I gulped, cursing myself for not being a chain-smoker like many in this school, if I was I could use a lighter I would certainly have. It was so dark that I was stepping blindly, reaching out with my foot before actually stepping. I looked back at Haruhi, I was some three meters away from the door.

Damn, I thought I was down already.

"What?" She asked me with a Kyon's-afraid-of-dark face I just categorized now.

"Nothing."

And I continued down. Suddenly I got an idea, yeah even I have one of those bulb flashing moments from time to time. I pulled up my left sleeve and pushed the button on my watch, trying to use the background light to see a little. I began to scan the darkness before me with my watch. I felt like one of those random characters in sci-fi movies fooling around with their all-knowing wrist scanners.

Too bad mine wasn't working at all. It was just as dark as before.

I won't lie to you, I was scared out of my mind. You know what I'm talking about. It's not like I'm scared of dark or monsters hiding under my bed, it's just when you're down in some basement alone and you can't see nothing... you will get a little afraid.

Well that was to be expected. But I felt strange, like if there was something down there.

I had the exact same feeling as the one when I left my house. It was a deep kind of feeling, something in my stomach, something I don't know how to describe. A hunch, maybe?

Suddenly something touched me from behind. I jumped and turned around so fast I almost fell.

"Stop fooling around and get moving already!" It was Haruhi, thank god... yeah for once.

"Just follow me, it'll be a lot faster with me taking the lead." She boasted.

"Of course it will, you're the x-ray vision alien here." I joked to relieve myself of the fear.

"No, unfortunately not." The common sense look was not suiting her at all.

And then she disappeared. No, she just went ahead into the darkness. She didn't look scared at all now. Where did that previous 'N-no of course not!' average school girl vanished to?

After that I couldn't catch up with her, she was just too fast.

"Hey lend me that NV goggles, would you?" I said to confirm where she was.

"If I had those I wouldn't give it to you even if paid me." She said not that far ahead of me.

And then the pain came. No at first just a sound, a thud and after that the pain. I smashed my head against something.

"Shit!" I cursed, opening my eyes, "There are pipes everywhere."

"Come on, Kyon!" Haruhi giggled at me, mocking me, "Why can't you keep up?"

And I smashed my head again.

She laughed as she ducked underneath a series of pipes that were hanging low overhead.

I panted, "Well, chief, it could be because you are quicker than I am, but the real problem here is that you are shorter than I am, and I keep bashing my head on these stupid pipes. Now slow down a little, would you? We should keep close."

"And then what?" She turned around and stopped for a brief moment, "Hold hands? In your dreams idiot."

Haruhi laughed, "Come on, stupid, there ought to be ghosts in here." Now she sounded happy again, no sing of that previous depression, "Everyone says this school is haunted, and we both know I love ghosts. I love the spooks, I love zombies, you know, anything fun."

I groaned, "I hate this place. It's damp, stinks like crap, and it's dirty as hell. There is some kind of murky water dripping from these pipes, and I keep hitting my head on them, and the water is running down my face and stinking me out. Just that, there are no ghosts it's just a school basement, nobody died in here."

I tried to kick some sense into that sucker for supernatural brain of hers, because if she wishes they might actually appear.

Luckily my eyes already adjusted to the dark, so I saw a few things.

Haruhi looked around, "Well, that is because we have not gotten to where the ghosts are yet probably. We could stumble upon a mass grave or a mad scientist lab! Those would reek with ghosts."

I ducked a series of pipes again, nearly going to my knees to avoid bashing my brains out. I looked ahead, and took a deep breath before staggering to my feet. As I drew the dank air into my lungs, I smelled something funny beside the damp mold and rotted wood. It was a smell unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

Haruhi stopped suddenly, looking at a room that opened up before us, "What is that smell? Do you smell it?"

"Just a dead rat probably." I said.

"Maybe." She didn't sound that convinced to me, to tell you the truth I wasn't either.

I looked around the room. I couldn't see much just plain walls with nothing to catch my attention. There was no breaker in here, but there were two doors on each side of the room.

"Look there are no zombies and stuff like that, you're not fooling me you really believe any of those stupid stories about this school." I said dusting myself.

"Oh, playing the hero?" She said her left hand on her hip, "Well then let's split up and find out."

"We're not chasing mysteries here, let's just find the breaker, get it on and then leave." I protested.

"There are two doors, if we split up we'll find it faster." She said already opening the door near her.

I realized that I was gritting my teeth, back and forth. That odd feeling was back, "I still don't like it. Anything can happen. Just be careful."

But she was already gone.

I gave up and opened the other door.

I decided to get to the breaker as fast as I could so I started to run. I ran for about twenty feet when I suddenly slowed. I could see a faint light shining on a wall in front of me. Quickly glancing around I realized that there was a sudden turn to the left, so I picked up the pace and continued to follow the hallway. As I made the turn, I saw the opening into some room. I dashed into the room and slowed, looking around. There was something about the room that made me very uncomfortable. I looked around for a moment, pondering this until it suddenly hit me. The light. We were underground. There were no windows in this room, and yet, there was light everywhere.

What the hell?

The ceiling of the room seemed to glow under a power of its own. I glanced up trying to figure out what was giving off the light, and then I fell down on my ass. I blinked hard, trying to swallow what I saw. I stood up and shook my head rubbing my eyes. What in the world was that? When I gathered enough courage I glanced up again. The light was moving.

"You've got to be shitting me..." I weeped.

The ceiling of the room was literally covered with thousands of little white writhing worms that put off a surprisingly bright light. I looked at the little worms, trying to think rationally, trying to figure it out, trying not to scream like a little girl. Maybe it really existed, a kind of a worm that glowed in the dark. Maybe Haruhi did it, something she saw in a cheap horror flick. They seemed harmless enough, but there was something dreadfully familiar about them. I looked down trying not to think about it. I hoped they weren't in the room Haruhi had gone to. Then hell would break loose.

Then I heard a loud, "Found it!" Coming from the other side of the wall.

I heard a clicking noise and sound of something powering up. Guess Haruhi found the circuit breaker and switched the power back on.

But I was too afraid to move. I decided to leave as quietly as I could, so I wouldn't disturb the worms. But I couldn't take my sweet time either, I had to get out before she came here.

I barely took two steps when I discovered what it was that would draw the worms that were on the ceiling. With a great sucking noise, all the worms over my head suddenly released their hold on the ceiling and dropped down on top of me. Wherever there was bare skin, I could feel a burning coming from the worms. I closed my eyes, frantically fighting back against the terror that threatened to overwhelm me. Shit, shit, shit. No matter how hard I tried to stay cool I was still fucked. Closer to the top of my head, where I hit my head before, I could feel the worms trying to burrow their way into my forehead.

With the panic finally overtaking me, I started to swat at the worms with my hands. As I swatted at my shoulder, I heard a faint sizzling noise, and the smell of something rotten assailed my already overwhelmed nostrils. I paused for a moment, trying to center my running mind. I tried to think happy thoughts.

_Green leaves.  
Happy animals.  
Girls cheering my name._

The worms were still eating me up.

"What the FUCK is this shit all about!?" It didn't help, "Can't she think as a normal human for once!!!?"

I started squatting the worms all over my body, it probably looked as if I were on fire and tried to put out the flames with my bare hands. The sizzle of the worms as they popped was nauseating, but worse still was the stench of the blood coming from the bursting worms. I started to laugh, it was just too damn funny. I wished for excitement when I entered high school, I got it. Laughing, I banged my hands around my head, touching the worms wherever they were on my head and shoulders.

"This is some serious bullshit!!!"

I shouted as I dove for the ground and began rolling around.

Then I heard a creak and sudden light blinded me. Big worm queen trying to finish the job!? I covered my head.

"What are you lying around for Kyon?" It was Haruhi standing in the door.

I stopped rolling and opened my eyes. The worms were gone, not on my body, not on the ceiling. I looked at my hands, they were reasonably clean. Even the blood and the stench were gone, as if the worms never existed. A figment of imagination.

I pulled myself up, still a little shocked.

What... just happened?

"What do you mean? I turned the power on, now come on let's go find that phone, I don't want to be stuck here with you forever." She said, "Why were you on ground covering your head anyway?"

I tripped.

"Whatever. Let's go." And she left.

I watched her back for a while just standing there.

What... was that?

Was it real? I looked around, there was no evidence of the worms whatsoever.  
Was it just my imagination? No, I'm not crazy or anything... right?  
Was I dreaming? I pinched my arm, it hurt and I didn't wake up.  
Was Haruhi recreating the world again? Didn't feel like the last time.

I shook my head, brushing it off as an illusion and ran to catch up with Haruhi.

I decided it was just my imagination.

And made my second bigger mistake that day.


	2. Hug

_A/N: Okay, again thanks for reading in advance, sorry for typos though hope there won't be many in this chapter. About the dream, I wanted to make the reader think 'that was the nightmare?' and that nothing much would really happen, but guess it didn't work out... Anyway things are getting bigger and deadlier in this one, so be prepared... Hope you'll like it!_

* * *

Chapter 2: Hug

* * *

So, where was I again?

Yeah, right after the worm incident. The walk out of the basement was actually a piece of cake compared to how we were getting inside. Well that's what lights are for, so you wouldn't stumble around in the dark. With the rooms finally lit we realized we took a pretty rough detour, ducking the pipes and all that. If we walked a little more to the left I wouldn't have to transmit Morse code with my head. Anyway as we trekked back out, it got unusually quiet, I mean on my side. Haruhi was blabbing about something, but I wasn't exactly listening. My mind was preoccupied.

Was I hallucinating?

I never feared insects in general, the prank I tried to pull proves that. Maybe the stress caused it, and because I played around with crickets my mind just took out something that would scare me. There was one other reason I could think of, a much more simple one. Maybe she was just taking... No, couldn't be. By the way I was trapped in the school, how would that make you feel? As an average student, for me that was the most horrible thing I could think of. And that Hamster Cannon whatever wasn't adding anything nice to the soup either. That had to be it. I touched my forehead, I pulled away my hand. My hand was red, I felt the blood oozing out and gathering on my left brow. Had to be the hit I took, cause of my immobility. Had to be... On the other hand, it wasn't bleeding before the worms tried to eat their way inside.

No, that's just plain ridiculous. I concluded.

Anyway I had to look just as bad as I felt, because Haruhi got quiet all of a sudden. She looked my direction every now and then and she was... shaking? No, probably just my imagination acting up again. Right?

"Are you okay?" I asked not looking at her, just straight ahead.

"It's nothing, and you?" She picked up the pace a little, so I couldn't see her face anymore.

I wiped away the blood using my sleeve.

"I'll survive." Since I was answering my own question, I didn't feel like saying 'I'm okay' because I wasn't feeling _okay _in any sort of a way.

I couldn't quite tell her about it too. With the fate of the world, no with the fate of the universe depending on how she feels when she gets out of her bed in the morning, I absolutely couldn't. No freaking way. I had to preserve the world, I actually like this place you know.

All right... The truth was I didn't want to look as a complete fool in front of her. Sure there was the possibility she would believe me, get all hyped up about the white glowing worms and then she would do something stupid with the world. Then again what if she wouldn't believe me? I would look like a complete moron. Hm, now that I think about it, it really didn't matter. In her mind I already was the stupidest ratfink crybaby twerp that ever lived. At least she goes around proving that every day.

In other words I had to take the fact that I saw those worms with me to my grave. Hope that won't be anytime soon, though.

Why am I even thinking about it, it DIDN'T happen.

And we left the basement.

Outside the sun began to set, but it was already dark because of the snow storm that was spreading through the sky. It was grey, but I knew the difference between the real world and closed space and this didn't look like one. Didn't feel like it either.

I looked at Haruhi, she was looking outside and seemed troubled. I guess even she, with that weird personality of hers, will get worried from time to time. Then again, who wouldn't in our situation.

Then she noticed my stare, "Why we had to switch it back anyway? Phones don't need the local energy source to work."

"Really?" I was surprised, "Didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't, but that's just _you._" She marked me stupid once again, "Anyway let's just go to the teachers' room and call for help we already wasted enough time."

Lead the way.

"You don't know where it is, do you?" Haruhi crooked her eyebrow, "Well no real surprise coming from someone who never got into any trouble."

This day is going to be long.

"Are you kidding?" I said, "I'm always in trouble. Ever since I joined that club of yours my life is nothing but trouble."

She opened her mouth to protest but I continued to talk, cutting her off.

"I mean just look at today," I spread out my arms, "A fine example of what I have to go through all the time. I can't even remember when I fell asleep without being scared out of my mind thinking about what's coming to me when I wake up."

Haruhi grinned, placing her hand on her chest, "Poor Kyon, I'm touched. Should I give you a hug?"

I sighed, from the bottom of my lungs. What was I trying to achieve?

"You know what, forget it." I said, my voice a little more irritated than I thought it would be.

I started to walk but she grabbed me by my sleeve and turned me around to look at her, "What are you complaining about, Kyon!? I thought you liked it, it was your idea in the first place."

"Like hell it was." I shrugged off her hand and started to walk again.

Sure I gave her the idea to make her own club, I was even okay with being a part of it. Why not? It's fair to say that I also kinda liked the club at first, I mean why wouldn't I? We had cute girls, game mates I actually won over, each day something new to relieve me of the boredom... I was okay with it - at the beginning. Before I was told who she really is. Before I was told that I'm walking in concrete shoes on a very thin ice, in the middle of a blizzard. Before all what I was ever told about God was thrown out of our atmosphere, burning in the sun.

There is no god.

Sometimes, I felt like I wanted to be beaten and punished for knowing the truth. I was atheist before, so it was okay if there wasn't a God anymore, but I still wanted to respect something. I didn't want a person I know, a person who's going with me to school to be the center of the universe.

I watched Haruhi as she kicked open the door to the teachers' room, only stopping to shout back, "What are you waiting for idiot, an invitation!?"

The blessed and perfect manifestation of God.

Right.

The room was bigger than I expected, combining a few decoration styles. Like each part of it belonged to a different teacher. On the left was a small kitchen with pretty impressive collection of normal ever present things, such as a classic coffee pot. Suddenly a smile crept on my face, if I managed to slip some laxative in the pot, no doubt we would have a substitute lessons for a while. Okay, first we had get out, and second I wouldn't do it anyway. Not exactly my style. In the middle of the room was a fairly large round coffee table with some books, dishes with leftovers and cups on it. And the room reeked of smoke. It was winter so nobody really opened windows that much, but man I started to doubt all those people with degree telling us about history and math and language. Telling us about dead people who made great things. Telling us what we should do and should not do.

Haruhi coughed, "Damn those pigs, I hate cigarette smoke!"

I was okay with it, not that I liked it, but I didn't despise it so much that I'd call our teachers pigs. And it was much better than the stench those worms produced when they exploded. Stench that seemed almost alien as it reached the nose, stench that seemed horribly... real?

I shook my head.

"Cut them some slack, Haruhi." I said looking around for a phone, "Being a teacher isn't as easy as you think, it plays with your nerves. If you were a teacher, I bet you'd murder your class the very first day."

"I'd be the best teacher in the world, all those kids would graduate a year early with me teaching!" As weird as it sounded, with her, you never know.

"Anyway, why in the hell would I let them slack, they lecture you about what is prohibited to wear and then go back here to smoke themselves to death!" She shouted.

It's not exactly normal walking around in a bunny suit.

She scanned me before the coutercharge, "It actually is completely normal, aren't you watching TV?"

Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything.

"So the teachers are pigs because they smoke, right?" I smiled opening some cabinet, "Sounds kinda funny coming from you, I always had you for the soon-chain-smoker type yourself."

"What!? Why?" Haruhi displayed rather shocked reaction.

"Finally." I noticed something fallen under the coffee table.

"I demand an explanation, Kyon!" Was she really trying to get out?

It was a phone. I picked it up and settled it on the table, pushing aside some plates. I took the receiver and put it to my ear, dialing police. And then felt like the biggest moron in the world. I pressed the hang up button a few times. Of course it was dead.

I let out the longest sigh in my life.

"The line's dead, right?" Haruhi said, not caring about my remark anymore, her previous energy lacking.

I nodded.

"Figures, this was almost too easy..."

She behaved rather calm, for the fact that we were trapped here and our last chance of getting out flew out of the window. But then she clenched her fist and drove it right into the coffee table almost smashing the cheap furniture in two.

"Damn this cold!!" She got up and shouted, "Damn winter!!"

She took a set of plates and threw them against the window. As the dishes crumbled to pieces, she turned to me.

For a while we stared at each other, with me calm as a slow river and her furious like a storm. She reminded me of a tiger whose prey just got away, still hungry already searching for a new one. I started to mouth, 'Damn you Kyon', as if to give her the hint of what she really wanted to say. But for whatever reason it didn't come.

"Damn this school!!!" Haruhi broke away the moment that was passing between us and went into the kitchen probably to destroy a few more random things.

I stood up and looked out of the window. The sun was long down already and the complete dark introduced itself at last. The dark and snow and fog were all tinted red thanks to the lights posted along the road. The streets were empty, hushed. Nobody walking around anymore. I looked at the houses surrounding the school, in one window I saw a family sitting down to supper. Behind them a television flickered in silent, bleeding colors. The snow kept piling up. Traffic lights changed red to green with no cars to stop or go. If I concentrated just so, there was the subconscious hum of something about to happen. Something dark, something violent. It was coming, it was coming as sure as a snow calamity. The feeling was back, that feeling of something bad just around the corner. The one I had before getting locked up here, the one I had before the... I touched my forehead. And I couldn't stop thinking about that one time I played Worms Armageddon with my friends when I was a little kid. I was never really crazy about the name.

What now?

I asked myself as the coffee pot hit the window beside me.

And then I heard something, a crack, a noise, coming from somewhere. I spun around, looked at Haruhi. We mirrored each other, our faces shocked, asking the other 'what the hell?'

The sound transformed into a voice, it was so faint I almost didn't hear it. Then it hit me... Impossible. I looked at Haruhi and saw the genuine smile that spread on her face. The phone started to work. We literary jumped down and grabbed the receiver holding it in between our ears, so we could both hear it.

"Hello!!? We're trapped here in school, we need help!!!" Haruhi started to scream into the phone.

And then I saw it, I looked down and gulped, breaking into a cold sweat.

On the other side of the receiver we heard people cheering, like if some kind of a show was about to start. The sound was breaking, as if you shuffled through stations on a radio trying to get a better signal.

"_Hello there ladies and gentleman and thanks for coming tonight!!_" It was a typical annoying quiz show voice trying to get the people to cheer and applause.

I looked at Haruhi, she gave me the same exact look I had to have. Wide eyes, opened mouth - the confused look of terror.

"_Welcome to another episode of 'Win or Lose'!!_" The voice shouted and the people in the audience started applauding, whistling and clapping.

"_Here you either answer correctly and win a GREAT prize!!! Or fail to answer correctly and receive the... PUNISHMENT!!!_" The voice shouted from the receiver, "_It all depends on you..._"

"O_ur lucky, or should I say unlucky challenger today is a boy nicknamed..._" The voice made a pause to build up the tension, "_KYON!!!_"

At this point the audience went crazy.

I closed my mouth shut.

"What!?" Haruhi said.

Whatever it was, it continued, "_Ok, here's your question 'Kyon'!!_"

My hands began to shake.

"_Rocket launcher, flying sheep, helium voices AND... holy hand grenade!!!_" The voice said, "_Worms Armaggedon is an exciting game that both adults and children love!!! The question is what is the name of the team that developed this game?_"

"_One: Team 47! Two: Vochozka Trading! Three: Team 17!_" The audience applauded and shouted again.

"_So have you got it figured out? When you know the answer go to the store room on the second floor and claim your prize – the working phone!!!_" The voice stopped, "_But be careful... if you're wrong... HAHAHAHA!!!_"

"_Okay everybody, thanks for coming!!! See you again sometime!_"

With that the voice cut off, the phone going dead once again.

Haruhi recovered first, "What was that?"

I shrugged, the sweat going down my cheeks.

"Is somebody playing with us!!!?" She jumped up looking around the room for hidden cameras, "Is this some kind of a reality show!!!?"

There were no cameras anywhere, I knew that. I didn't even have to look.

"Well Big Brother my ass!! Where are you hiding, you prick!!" But Haruhi didn't know the fact that made me question my sanity again yet, "Come out and I'll show you some decent material!"

She pulled up her sleeves.

"Is this some sort of game!?" No it's not, "If it is we're not playing anymore!!!"

"Come on, Kyon!!" She started shaking my shoulder, "We'll go to that store room and show him what comes along when you try to screw with the SOS Brigade!"

I blinked, for the first time since the beginning of the phone call.

Haruhi left the room hurrying to kick some joker's ass, because she didn't know what I knew.

The phone.

The cord was cut, it wasn't supposed to work. No, it _couldn't_ work. But it did and the voice knew who I was.

My left hand started shaking, I spread it open and stared at it for ten or twenty seconds, maybe longer. Then I made a fist as if I never hesitated, letting the receiver swing on its cord. Haruhi. Was it you all the time? I felt clammy, terrified. I didn't know what to believe, what to think. I don't think she would want such a thing, us trapped inside school. Maybe she wanted excitement. Maybe she was bored again...

The call mentioned only me.

I started to think that maybe I was trapped there forever.

And then Haruhi came back and pulled me up dragging me, "Cut it out!! We have some ass to kick!!!"

I know.

I refused to give in and once again I brushed it off as nothing. I'm the kind of a guy that doesn't believe much of what he sees. In my mind there was still a small glimmer of hope that this was all just a dream, that this all was indeed doing of some joker.

"I wonder what I'll do when you won't be around to nag me." I tried to joke myself out of despair.

She released her hold on me, "I'm not nagging you! Now start walking and don't make me spank you!"

And sure as hell, I deserved to get spanked. I deserved whatever I got. Picture anybody growing up so stupid he didn't know that hope is just another phase you can't take seriously. Me, the deluded idiot who really thought that things couldn't get much worse. If you just tried hard enough. If you just listened to your reasoning enough. Ran fast enough. Everything would turn out right, and that mysterious call would be the last weird thing happening.

It feels stupid even to remember this stuff. It's a wonder I lived this long.

Haruhi turned the knob of the storeroom and went inside, I walked in not sure of what to expect. It looked like janitor's room, but was probably used to store all the junk of the people who worked in the school. In other words, it was mess. Boxes on boxes, stocked shut with more boxes. So Haruhi started to throw them down impatiently, scattering junk all around destroying them in the process.

"Where is it!? Did he say what it looked like?" She was getting angry, speeding up in her search.

I shrugged, "No, but I already found it."

I was looking at a metal box that had numeric keypad on the upside. There were just three numbers on the key pad: one, two and three. The numbers represented the answers we were supposed to figure out. Now it stopped making sense. Why would some joker go through all the trouble of making such thing? Making the box alone would take weeks and attaching the keypad couldn't be done by some amateur, you had to know your wires to be able to produce such a thing.

"We have to take this seriously," I thought back to the worms, "It could be dangerous."

But Haruhi already picked up the box and placed it to the nearby vacant table. She looked at the numbers trying to switch the one she thought was right.

"Hey wait! Are you even listening to me!?" I grabbed her hand.

She immediately shook my hand off, "Why are you always such a coward Kyon! You reall-"

"If you're going to press it, at least answer it right." I cut her off pushing the number three.

Something inside the box clicked, locks opening. I lifted up the lid.

I looked at Haruhi, the moment of truth.

We both peered inside.

As I took it out I couldn't help but smirk. My smile was crooked, the evil kind. What I took out was a toy-phone. Green, made entirely from plastic and playing an annoying sound every time you dialed a number. But what was worst at the useless thing that made me smile the most was, that I remembered this from somewhere. In fact it was more than familiar.

"What is this supposed to be..." Haruhi seemed surprisingly calm.

She took it from my grasp and examined it herself, touching the numbers trying to make it work, probably still clinging to hope. She turned it, twisted it, desperately trying to find the cord.

It's useless, it's just a toy.

"How can you be so sure, Kyon?" She turned to me, still holding the phone.

Because I know it.

"Huh?" Now she tilted her head in surprise.

In fact I saw it just yesterday. My sister was playing with it, making fake calls all day. I thought she did on purpose, trying to get under my skin. But she was just playing, enjoying herself with such a simple toy. But that's not the first time I saw it. My sister inherited it from me, I played with it myself when I was a kid. I even took it to kindergarten a few times, when I got bored with toys they had there.

Coincidence?

I was such a moron to think it really was one.

Haruhi put the phone back into the box, closed it and placed it on the ground. Then she raised her right leg and began to stomp the shit out of it. She kicked down at it and started screaming all around. She did it until she was out of her breath. I didn't try to stop her, I guess I could level with her in the urge to destroy it, but she just beat me to it. I guess we just wanted to ruin it, because it ruined another chance to get out.

After some time she was so out of breath, she had to take a few breaths to be able to kick again.

"Calm down," I placed my hand on her shoulder, "We will get out eventually. My parents always freak when I'm not home before six."

"I want out now!!" But she didn't stop.

"It promised us a _working_ phone!!" She shouted, "Not this piece of crap!"

"Well it is working, isn't it?" I said, not really the best time to insert my stupid remark.

"It's all your fault Kyon!" She turned to me, "If you weren't so useless we could leave earlier today!!"

Her mouth told me, you are the cause of everything.

"Look who's talking!" I shouted back, not able to take it anymore, "It was you who wanted to stay late! 'We need to make sure it's fake Kyon!' Don't you remember!!? If we didn't do that and left as we normally do, everything would be fine!"

"Then you should leave and not come back to check up on me like if I was some little girl in distress!!" Her eyes were fierce, menacing, angry, red.

Hey eyes told me, help me.

"Anyway we would have a working phone if you didn't decide to chop mine into pieces!!!" I shouted and I wasn't going to stop, "You stupid bit-"

Her hand told me, die you fucking bastard.

I held the side of my face she slapped and glared back at her. My vision was shattered, as if I was looking through a broken glass. I wanted to choke her and end all of my problems right there.

Instead I just turned around and left.

"Are you running away again!?" She shouted from behind me, "I'm not finished with you, you wimp, come back here right now or you're expelled from the brigade!!!"

I turned my head, looking at her over my shoulder. She looked like a little girl in distress, her eyes almost watering, her mouth saying what the brain didn't want to.

For the first time that I knew her, she looked weak.

And I said, "Don't worry, I just need to take a leak."

Maybe power corrupts, but she wasn't always a bitch.

-

After I was done, I washed my hands watching my reflection in the mirror. Men's bathroom was the only room where I thought she wouldn't follow me. The only room where I could be by myself for a while. Where I could stop and try to think. Where she was, I didn't know. Didn't care. She said, make it quick, though. Maybe she was standing beside the door, listening, maybe she was back in class, I didn't care. Questions kept popping up and I was short on answers. Just some theories, blind guesses. But one theory I had was creeping up more than all the others.

Revenge.

Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Think of all the people you'd like out of your life. Think of all the loose ends you could tie up. The revenge. Think how easy it would be. Think how easy it would be with unlimited power.

Maybe she heard me with the cricket thing, hidden behind the door listening to us, maybe she grew tired of me. Of my little tricks or my boring/sarcastic self. Maybe she was finally trying to get rid of me.

Why did the worms attack just me?  
Why they disappeared when she came?  
Why did the call mention only me?  
Why the phone seemed as the one I played with as a kid?

I wanted insects in the ceiling, I got them.  
I wanted my cellphone back, I got one.

Maybe she's just taking revenge.

It was too hot in the room, even though it was winter and I noticed I was sweating like a pig. I took off my jacket and tie and left them wadded on the floor. I was scared shitless and I didn't want to admit it.

I looked at myself again.

There was a strange glitter in my eyes, a barely visible twist on my lips. My hands felt like they were made of wire and I ran them through my hair. Now I wore a white shirt and ill-fitting pants. If only I had a nametag I could be a hapless drone selling religious literature door to door. And people would buy, scared by my expression.

Why is it so hot in here?

I started to fan my head and looked around. Just a school's restroom. A typical place for your horror movie scene. When you're watching a horror movie and there's scene in the restroom, you know what's coming. A scare, a monster, a killer.

As I pondered the thought, I felt it again. That feeling, that hunch I had just before the worms, before the call.

Something was about to happen, I knew that for sure by now.

And then the stench came, that alien kind of stench, stench unlike anything you ever smelled before. Smell that could make you vomit your lungs out if you stayed with it for too long.

After that came the the sound. Sound of something falling coming from the stall area.

"Cliché," I smiled to myself trying to get rid of the growing fear.

When I saw myself in the mirror again, I wasn't smiling though. The face there was shocked, scared beyond its mind. And that's exactly how I felt. Nothing's cliché, when it's happening to you.

Still I decided to check it out, someone could get trapped in here with us, that was a possibility.

I moved from stall to stall, opening them as slowly as I could prepared for the binary choice of run away or die. Three stalls out of four were empty. The fourth said 'occupied' on the door. I got to my knee to check if it was empty. I saw legs, there was indeed someone locked here with us.

I knocked on the door, "Do you need any help?"

But I didn't get any reply, just the thud again. I knocked again saying some nonsense and finally the occupied button rolled over to the green one.

I opened the door.

I coughed once, stopping the bile. There was indeed someone with us, but now there was just half of someone with us. There were just legs inside the stall, legs in an advanced stage of decay. There was blood and bits and pieces of something sprayed around everywhere inside the stall, as if the upper part of the body exploded. I covered my mouth. There was something strange where the chest should be, stuck inside the left over. Something like a ball, but it was too curved to be one.

I was so shocked, I forgot to scream for help.

It almost looked like an egg. Egg the size of a basket ball. I noticed a X shaped crack on the tip of the egg, as if it was supposed to open. Scattered around the body, as if falling from inside, were the little glowing worms that attacked me before. Maggots unlike any I ever seen.

And then almost vomiting, I did the stupidest thing in the world.

I flushed the toilet. Now why did I do that? Was I that out of it? Wasn't my brain working? Was I so scared by that horrifying scene? I don't know. I just know what happened after that.

Just as the water began to run, that X shaped scar started to open. I still had the time to run, but stood there almost as if someone nailed my shoes to the ground.

My heart raced, cold sweat started to run. I forgot how to breathe.

And then I noticed it, noticed not _saw_ it, because it was just too fast to be seen. Something jumped from the egg and shutting my eyes close, I covered my head with my hands. A reflex. As lucky as I was I accidentally managed to grab it in both hands before it got to my face.

I didn't really want to open my eyes.

But I did.

First thing I saw was a hole, just a dark hole with little teeth around it like a hand saw. A mouth. There was something unpleasantly yellow oozing out of the mouth. A saliva. Then I realized I was holding some kind of animal in my hands. I held it by its legs and it kept twisting and moving about like a fish you just caught. From afar it resembled a scorpion, it had a tail, eight legs - each side four, but I knew it wasn't something as nice as a scorpion. The tail was more than fifty inches long and when I studied it further it seemed more like a razor wire with mace on the end. It was round, the legs long enough to spread around the back of my head. And it bared almost horrific resemblance to those worms I encountered before. It wasn't glowing, but seemed semi-transparent. And just as the worms it was too familiar, as if I seen the thing somewhere before. I guess it wanted to jump on my face then tear off the skin, planting some little worms seeds inside my skull, then fall over dead and leave a nice little alien to breed inside. But I caught it in the middle of the act.

So the thing got desperate.

I heard a sound of a whip cracking and felt impact on my neck. It spread its razor tail around my throat, trying to choke me, trying to cut off my head.

I tried to shout, but the air was held back in my lungs and I couldn't breathe.

I stumbled back crashing into the wall, breaking down something hoping that Haruhi was still outside and able to hear me.

It didn't help.

I couldn't breathe.

The creature probably decided to choke me and eat me up later. I wasn't okay with the thought, so I turned around and jumped with my back into the stalls, breaking down two of them.

I still couldn't breathe and felt something brushing on my neck. The razors started to move.

Maybe it didn't chop off my head yet, because it wanted the head attached.

I jumped up. I was desperately trying to shake it off or shout for help, but couldn't achieve either. I couldn't shout and breathe and I couldn't take my hands of its legs. If we played chess, it would be a check for the monster. Either I would release my hold and it would get to my face or, it would eventually choke me and feast on me later.

And then I started to slowly release the hold. As I was choking I noticed the saliva started to ooze out more, as if it was looking forward to the meal and knew that I was growing weaker each second.

I was losing it already in my mind for thinking that way.

But I refused to give in.

I had to survive.

And in one swift motion, I torn off both of the legs that I was holding in my hands. The creature screamed, released its hold on my neck and spit something from its mouth. I managed to dodge it by twisting my head to the left. Then I threw it against a wall with everything I got. It smacked at the wall like a fly would on your windshield.

But the thing it spat out hit my ear.

The wall it squished on, began to hiss, it began to disappear. It was acid. The liquid that hit my ear was acid.

I fell to my knees, closing my eyes telling myself I was just dreaming.

Then door opened behind me, "Kyon?"

When I opened my eyes, the scene was gone. No sing of the monster at all. No sing of the body and maggots either. Just a bathroom I destroyed, fighting with a monster that never existed in the first place.

The pain was real though. My ear and neck. So even the monster was real. Now it wasn't, but was as hell when I fought with it.

I felt blood dripping from my ear onto my shoulder. Still sitting I picked up my jacket and carefully put it back on and let the blood drip.

And Haruhi said, crouching beside me, "Oh, my god. What did you do!? You butchered yourself like this!? You look like a mental patient!"

Everything had a faintly pink sheen to it. I felt grotesque. It was her again, wasn't it? Why else it would disappear so suddenly? The revenge thing sounded more and more possible. I felt that I should get away from that place before I ripped her throat out. I glanced at the mirror again. My ear was bloody and it was true. I looked like a bad suicide attempt.

"What happened Kyon!? Answer me!" And she got desperate.

I fucking tripped again.

I was sitting down beside someone that possibly tried to kill me. I felt ill. My stomach was empty. The joints in my limbs hurt. Impossible to concentrate. There was a fucking frenzy in my head. My hands stank of the creature and blood and I held them away from my body.

"You tripped again?" She asked not believing, "Well nevermind that now, I'll take you to the infirmary, okay? There's got to be some bandages there, do you hear me Kyon!?"

She pulled my left hand over her shoulders trying to lift me up.

"Now would you be so kind and try to stand up? I can't quite lift you up by myself." She said.

And I complied.

If I wanted to get out of there alive, I had to make sure I never got into an argument with her again.

She used her God-like powers to kill me again.

Somehow that thought didn't sit right with me.

No way, she's not God.

God's a noble, hard-line moralist who refuses to accept anything but steadfast righteous conduct. He's a bastion of upright standards, a lamp that shines its light to reveal the evil of this world. God will always be in our hearts and souls because His own soul is so strong and so un-

Okay, bad example...

How to put it? She can't be God, that's just ridiculous. Imagine if Jesus chased you around, trying to catch you and save your soul. Not just a patient passive God, but a hardworking, aggressive bloodhound. What would you do?

If telling her that zombies don't exist made worms... If shouting at her made Facehugger... I wondered what would happen if I continued to argue with her in the storeroom.

And for whatever reason, Sodom and Gomorrah came to mind. How God would spare the city if there was one good person still in it.

I should play nice from now on.

Maybe God didn't start out by attacking and berating everybody who prayed. Maybe it was after years and years of getting the same prayers about unwanted pregnancies, about divorces, about family squabbles. Maybe it was because God's audience grew and more people were making demands. Maybe it was the more praise He got.

Maybe power corrupts, but He wasn't always a bastard.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Haruhi asked cutting off my train of thought.

"Looking how?" I asked.

"Like I tried to kill you or something?" She replied, my hand still over her shoulders.

I closed my eyes, saying "You ever wonder if Adam and Eve were just the puppies God dumped because they wouldn't house-train?"

She looked at me as if I was the craziest man on the planet. Her eyes wide, unable to reply.

I continued, "Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet."

"What are you talking about Kyon?" Was the only thing she managed to say.

And I looked outside the window. The whole world was a mess, not a closed space like, but snow storm like hell like. I touched my ear, then looked at the blood on my hand.

You can flush me, but I'll just keep eating shit. And I'll just keep growing.

And she said, "What do you mean?"

Whatever You want it to mean.


	3. Holier than thou, holier than me

_A/N: Thanks for the feedback, everyone! Yeah, I think it's partly confusing maybe even this chapter will be, but I guess that's just how it is I try to make it more understandable. I do realize there is some OoC stuff in this story, but everyone would act a little differently trapped somewhere with no way out. Anyway, enjoy the chapter, in this one Kyon will have to face something a little different..._

* * *

Chapter 3: Holier than thou - holier than me

* * *

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.

Isn't that the big saying, isn't that the sacred ancient wisdom that parents teach the child that's too afraid to talk about things? I thought so too, lived according to it. But sometimes, even old sayings like that become a bunch of useless lies. They become incompatible with reality you have to face. As I was thrown into the chair and disinfectant was forcefully applied to my ear, I shaped the saying according to myself a little. Stick and stones may break our bones, but words can hurt like hell.

I mean, you talk back for once and you almost die. It's nearly unreal, more horrifying than the worms and that scorpion thing combined. Just imagine that you get into an argument with your classmate, it gets a little serious so you decide to just turn around and walk away, but as you do the classmate grabs you from behind and cuts open your throat. You think I'm exaggerating? But that's exactly how I felt. The felling was, that I was hunted down for everything bad I did to her. I felt I was being punished for everything that she marked as a disregard of her authority. Like if you broke a commandment and God came down and personally kicked your ass depending on how serious your crime was.

I was scared, frightened, almost jumped and screamed at every little sound since the bathroom incident. I didn't want to think about it, but I couldn't get it out of my head. It kept coming back, in bright blue flashbacks.

Flashback number one, me opening the stall door seeing a dead body halved with some sort of ugly egg-thing wedged inside of it.

I couldn't shake it, couldn't stop it. It was like me being the robot chicken, a roadkill that's made to come back to life, only to watch the shit.

And here went flashback number two, some animal jumping out spreading its razor tail around my neck trying to breed with my head.

I winced at the pain that suddenly came from my ear.

"Jeez, I didn't even touch you yet, you big baby," and Haruhi spoke to me for the first time since I told her about alligators.

But I had to play the cool guy, I had to suck it up and hold. I had some awesome one-liners back there, I didn't want to ruin it by weeping like a little girl. So I just sat there and swallowed up the pain. But thinking that way didn't change the fact that I was almost killed back there... What the hell was that thing anyway? Was Haruhi watching Alien movies lately or something? Was it vengeance for me shouting at her? Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can kill you now, too.

Somehow telling her that crap about alligators calmed me down, still I needed to check my shorts if I didn't let something go. Damn, things were getting serious. And of course I was all jumpy about how she'd react to my little rebellion. What I told her back there could be deciphered simply as 'go to hell'. But she just turned around and without a single word took me to the infirmary, or should I say she just walked with me to the infirmary.

She applied the disinfectant again, seemed almost as if she was enjoying herself hurting me.

And it was time for the flashback number three, every time she came back to me the monsters disappeared. Leading us to a conclusion that she had something to do with it. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to be near her because she tried to kill me twice already, but at the same time I had to stay close to her, which was the only way to keep the monsters at bay. It was sort of a... buzz saw dilemma.

She took out some bandages and a needle and thread.

I gulped, "Does it really need to be stitched?"

Haruhi didn't answer. But every time she passed before me and I glanced up, she had this look plastered on her face. Look that screamed 'heretic!' Was I really? Depends on how much you believe that Haruhi-God thing. She put the thread through the needle and started to near me.

"Do you know who Democritus was?" she suddenly said.

"Huh?"

She continued, "A famous philosopher, an inventor of democracy, a man that according to scholars had a certain hobby."

"What kind of hobby?" I tried to keep the conversation, to occupy her attention.

"Magic," she turned to me. "He said that burning a head of a chameleon on an oak fire will cause a thunderstorm. That to shut someone up to make them stop talking, you should take a fish and sew its mouth shut."

Was she just trying to scare me because of the talk I had before?

I gulped somehow trying to absorb it, "Why are you telling me this? And what does it have to do with us?"

Maybe another barrage of uselessness that she's full of. From time to time she just stopped running around doing things as she pleased and talked like that. And when she does, it always gets to me. She's freaking full of it. She believes in alien life, time machines and PSI-powers, no real surprise she believes in magic. I bet her collection of books contains some scary stuff like necronomicon, ancient magic how-to books and all other science fiction, fantasy and horror things. No doubt those are her stories before the bed time. I didn't really want to think about what her parents read her when she was a kid.

But she didn't listen to me at all, "To cure an earache he said you need to use the semen of a boar as it drips from a sow's vagina."

And I closed my eyes saying, "I wish I had a fish..."

"What I'm talking about is how they saw the world during those ancient times," she seemed deep in thought as she continued her monologue. "Just think about it, these people who gave us democracy and architecture, magic and gods were an everyday part of their lives. Businessmen put curses on each other. Neighbors cursed neighbors. Near the site of the original Olympic Games, archaeologists have found old wells full of curses placed by athletes on other athletes."

"Is this more of the aliens, time-travelers and espers nonsense?" I was getting fed up.

"It's not nonsense! I'm not making this up!!" Haruhi objected sharply. "I mean, why did they think that way? Why would they do it? Why would they go through all the way of writing a curse over and over if it had no real effect?"

And I said, "Because they thought it would work?"

"No, because it _worked_!!" she beamed, her face getting perhaps too close for comfort. "They would just stop if all those curses and spells didn't do anything, don't you agree Kyon!? Even philosophers like Democritus thought it was all true!"

What she was trying to do was, give me some proof about supernatural. I already knew about aliens, time travel and psychic powers, so I started to think about it. What if she's right? What if spells really existed long before she came along. In Greece, in ancient Rome. All those gods, what if they were real. What if... No.

And I said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

I denied it. I had to deny it, my brain couldn't bear the thought. There are no spells. There is no God. There are just decisions and death.

She turned to me displeased, "My point is that there has to be some book that has at least one working spell still out there somewhere. We just have to get our hands on it."

So it really was just another chase for mysteries crap.

"You think spells are real?" I laughed. "Man, if you just could hear yourself. If you think this much, think of a way out instead."

And Haruhi smiled her devilish smile and said, "You must be kidding! You must wonder what we could do with that kind of a book, we could be kings of the world!" she said. "No more than that, we'd be Gods!!"

And hitting me as fast as a hiccup, me holding the bandage to my right ear, just staring at her, I said no.

She said, "Maybe you could live forever."

And I said no.

And she said, "Maybe you could make anyone love you."

No.

And she said, "Maybe you can turn straw into gold."

And I said no and stood up.

"Maybe you could bring about world peace," she said watching me rise.

And I said no and walked to the door.

Behind me, she called, "Maybe you could turn sand into bread."

And I kept walking.

And she called, "Where do you think you're going?! I'm still talking to you!"

I don't care.

"Another reckless disregard of my authority!!?" Haruhi shouted from behind me. "Keep going and you're out of the brigade for real!!!"

I'm not that lucky.

Her voice behind everything said, "Just think about the possibilities Kyon. Maybe you could cure the sick. Maybe you could heal the crippled."

The voice coming after me said, "Maybe you could clean the environment and turn the world into a _paradise_."

I wish I had a fish and needle and thread.

The voice said, maybe you could generate unlimited clean energy.

Maybe you could travel through time to prevent tragedy.

Maybe you could generate an artificial intelligent life.

Maybe you could give people rich full happy lives they deserve.

"No."

And I left the room.

I had to leave, I had to say no to everything because that talk coming from her sounded almost too funny to bear. I mean that's how real God thinks. Clean unlimited energy, heal the crippled, huh? That is not how _Haruhi_ thinks. It was like if something put the words inside her mouth and she had to talk them out. Or maybe it's how she really thinks, but everything she's ever good at is destroying the world she wants so much to save.

"Are you running away from the truth, Kyon!?" she was already catching up to me. "Come back here!!"

Maybe I tried to run or maybe I didn't, I just couldn't stand it anymore. I got fed up talking to her, reminding myself that she doesn't really mean all those nice things, that she wants me dead. But still I had to let her catch up to me, I wasn't so crazy to let her out of my sight and expose myself to some horror again. Because even with so many questions two things were obvious right away. She possessed powers beyond anyone's control and my life could become a living hell because of it.

And besides I got an idea how to get us out.

Outside it was dark, some people already slept so it would disturb them at this hour, so it would work perfectly.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Haruhi said grabbing my jacket. "It's not like you have to do your homework anymore."

I was forcefully stopped.

And I reached out my hand and flicked the light switch on.

"We're getting out Haruhi," I said as she moved with my jacket turning me around. "Let's turn on all the lights in the school we can find, someone is bound to notice that."

She just stared for a while then smiled.

"Good idea! So you actually have a brain," she said. "We should split up though. That way we'll cover more of the school."

And she started to walk away.

"Well, I... I think we should stay together, I mean..." I tried to stop her. "You never know."

Haruhi turned around and smiled, she scanned me placing her hands on her hips, "Well, well, well. What do we have here? So you're actually afraid of the dark, huh?"

I touched my ear, "Yeah, scared beyond my mind."

I tried to make it sound as sarcastic as possible, but the truth was that I was scared enough to shit my pants right there.

-

We finished turning on lights on the first floor of the main building and walked up the stairs to the second one.

It was then that I began to sweat like hell.

Outside the world was all dark and white on white and I was having second thoughts about my idea. We'd be really lucky if someone noticed the lights in that kind of weather. I unbuttoned the first two buttons of my shirt trying to vent my body as much as possible. Looking at Haruhi I couldn't quite tell her about my worries, she would just get upset and make up some horror for me again. As we worked our way through the second floor, Haruhi got tired of me trailing behind her like a shadow and said that we should at least go through the rooms separately. I was dubious of the idea at first, with my life on the line, but complied. We would be on the same floor so I told myself it would be okay.

It went along like this, I opened a door to room, flicked the switch and ran out as fast as I could, catching up with Haruhi in the hallway. Probably looked pretty lame from her perspective, but hell better be the annoying coward than be dead.

When we were almost finished with the second floor, just a few rooms renaming, I started to slow down.

I didn't want to. I tried to finish it as soon as possible, but still I slowed down. I opened another door and searched for the switch, but instead of switching it I had to lean my body on the wall for a while to rest.

My legs felt funny. Hands were rigid and shaking. The joints in my bones ached, like if I needed a bone marrow transplantation. My head started to pound as if a decent amount of smurf tried to dance their way outside. And it was too hot. Every part of my body was covered in sweat. There was a snow storm outside, but inside it was burning hell. There was a radiator beside where I was, I carefully touched it. Huh? It was cold like dry ice.

And even though I felt like being locked inside a furnace, I felt cold. It was a strange feeling.

I started to cough and couldn't stop it for a while.

Then it faded away.

I tried to lay low for a while but my head was killing me, there was something swimming inside my skull. Pounding.

The pain was almost crippling, I had it every time those things appeared. A premonition.

It was there, it was horrific, but it was just another thing on the what to do list - I needed to figure out what was going on with me.

I looked outside the window. The snow just kept piling up, I started to think that maybe that post-apocalyptic sky wasn't really just a metaphor. I needed to figure out what was going on in general.

I needed to get out.

The whole thing with us trapped inside school might have been easier if it wasn't for the cold. Winters in this town were always though, but this was different. Every minute was colder than the last, the snow never stopped. Maybe she wasn't out to get just me, maybe she was out to get everything...

I took a deep breath.

Stay cool. Stay calm. Nothing's gonna happen if you stay close to her.

I rubbed my eyes and straightened up myself. I'm just tired is all. I stretched my hands up above my head and then flicked the switch on.

When I left the room Haruhi was already waiting for me there.

She walked to me impatiently, "So we turned on all the lights in the school, now what?"

I shrugged, "Guess we'll just have to wait and see."

"Knew it!" she exclaimed. "Your ideas are always the passive, half-assed kind!"

"And besides-" she wanted to say something, but was interrupted by a growl.

Yeah, I'm kinda hungry too.

"Wha?! N-No I didn't growl, it wasn't me okay, it was... that pipe over there!!" she pointed over my shoulder almost blushing.

I didn't turn around. I enjoyed the moment.

She was acting completely out of her character, probably ashamed by the fact that her body is just as human as mine. And that's a sight you don't get to see every day. I guess even would be murderers act human.

"Sure," I smiled. "But we should check out the cafeteria anyway."

"Yeah..." her look was the defeated kind, kind that Haruhi never has.

I was satisfied.

The cafeteria seemed larger than it actually was, probably because there was no one inside. Not like I went there regularly, just a few times when I forgot my lunch or was too lazy/late to prepare one. And yet with the dark snow outside the windows it seemed different, I felt like traveling through alternate reality. The tables were cleaned and chairs were placed upside down on them, the floor was slippery making it hard to move around. Someone moped the ground not too long ago, but that's a normal everyday routine in school the cleaners are hired for, nothing mysterious about that. I pondered if we should walk along the wall so we wouldn't stain the floor, but it really didn't matter. Haruhi already went through the middle leaving visible stains where she walked.

I stopped, letting her go ahead of me.

When we were distanced enough, I grabbed a knife from a plate on a nearby table and stuck it under my belt, then hid it under my shirt and jacket. An insurance. A kind of a wild card against unknown, I just couldn't rest without something to defend myself. Call me paranoid, but I was almost killed twice already.

Haruhi jumped over the counter, entered the kitchen and started to search stuff. I followed suit, went in the kitchen and started opening cabinets opposite from her. Inside were numerous detergents and buckets and sponges and just about anything not associated with food. There was no food inside the kitchen, even the fridge and freezer were empty.

"Dammit, where do they keep the food!?" Haruhi slammed some drawer shut. "Almost as if someone deliberately hid it all!"

"Maybe they get just the amount of food they need for the day everyday," I said. "Maybe they take the leftovers home so they wouldn't have to pay for their own food."

"Yeah! I bet they sell it on a black market!" Haruhi shouted, not exactly what I was implying.

I opened another cabinet. Inside was only one white jar, that got my attention. I took it out to examine it further, it was a jar of mayonnaise. No sing of any expiration date on it. I opened it, it didn't smell bad.

And then it was snatched from my hands.

"I confiscate this in the name of the SOS Brigade!" Haruhi said, already dipping her fingers in it.

"But I'm a member!" I took it back from her.

"Still not sure about that, Kyon!" she took it back and got away from me. "Even so, rank-wise you wouldn't get a single piece of it!!"

I started to think what my position in the Haruhi army really was.

But I didn't try to fight over it. I couldn't afford that kind of thing around her anymore and besides I didn't really have to anyway...

"So rank-wise, everything that I find from now on is mine and just mine right?" I asked.

"You're right," she said munching down the mayonnaise.

"Really? Do I have your word on it?" I pressed.

"Sure, whatever, now don't bother me when I'm eating," she continued to eat it, not really trying to save anything of it for me.

Well she can have it all.

I reached over her head and picked up a box of crackers I noticed before. I opened it and stuffed about five crackers in my mouth. Her mouth went agape, the jar almost slipping from her grasp.

When I chewed it enough to speak I said, "Suit yourself."

She let the mayo fall and I saw her hand trying to snatch my box of crackers. But I expected that so I held it over my head using my height as an advantage. She looked almost pitiful as her cheeks went red with anger, because she couldn't reach it. When she stopped trying I lowered it and she tried to snatch it again, but I pulled it up above my head again. This was repeated a few times, then she stopped trying for good.

"Stop it!!!" she yelled.

"Don't worry I'll leave three for you," I grinned.

"Just let me have it! It's only fair to share!" she crossed her arms.

"But it's mine, remember?" I said pointing on the ground. "You have your mayonnaise."

But then I saw it again, that strange look on her face that strange fire in her eyes. The same as back in the store room. Suddenly I remembered where I was and what I was doing. Remembered why I had knife stuck under my belt. I realized that I was tying the noose around my neck.

You reap what you sow.

"Here," I immediately gave her the box, getting nervous. "I was just fooling around, you know trying to ease up the atmosphere a little."

But luckily she took it and began to eat.

She barely looked at me after that but her dark thoughts were visible as smoke. And maybe I did it again. Maybe I pulled the pin.

She started to calm down as she ate some of the crackers, so I was safe. I buried my hands in my pockets and leaned against a nearby refrigerator. I just stood there looking at her. Even though she tried to kill me, I couldn't deny her looks. I stole a glance at her legs. Man those stockings looked good. I shook my head, looking away. There was a polished metal plate behind her head and I studied my own expression, curious to see if it would betray me. I scratched my throat and decided that I looked a little too desperate.

She caught my glance, smiled devilishly probably plotting something in her mind again. Then she dropped the box, turned around and bent over, as if trying to toy with my inner perverted self. I knew she did on purpose, but still I couldn't help but look.

But I didn't let myself fall for those tricks so easily anymore.

"Are you enjoying this?" I said.

"What?" she turned her head and looked up at me, still bent over.

Instead of answering I told her nothing and she pulled herself up looking at me. We just stood there looking at each other. I stared into her face. Shoved my thoughts at her like a bag of garbage. I wanted to ask her why she wouldn't let me out, why she wanted me dead. But she couldn't hear my thoughts. Her eyes flickered away like moth's wings.

"So... what we will do now?" she said.

I told her, "You act like we are on a date together. Like this is Christmas break."

Haruhi pressed her lips together.

"I was just trying to be... nice," she said meeting my eyes again.

Nice...?

"That's right," she replied.

We went silent.

Then she spoke up, "Why didn't you leave when you had the chance?"

"Are we talking about that again?" I asked. "To be honest, I don't know."

And she said, "Then this isn't date, and don't worry you're not my type anyway."

There was a sudden fist in my throat. I grew allergic to someone saying, you aren't my type. How many girls told me that kind of sentence after they gave me their number and I got enough courage to ask them out? Not many, just three in fact but she just added herself on that list, not like I cared but the list kept on growing. Whatever, enough with this subjective emotional crap.

"Where are you going, Kyon?" she asked behind me.

"I just remembered that one class that's under construction, could be a way out," I said not turning around.

Haruhi wasn't convinced, "But we just went through the whole school there was no such room, what are you talking about?"

"Remember the locked door on the second floor?" I said. "Well that's it, we just need to figure out how to open the lock."

I didn't even had the chance to finish my line and we were already heading out of the cafeteria, and it wasn't long and we stood before the door.

It wasn't locked, but there was a sturdy looking padlock on the side of the door. I grabbed it and pulled a few times, it was _very_ sturdy, the unbreakable kind. Well no real surprise, if there was a way out behind the door I would secure it as much as I could too.

"So how do we open it?" Haruhi said over my shoulder watching me play with the padlock.

"Beats me," I shrugged. "We could use some of that magic of yours. Maybe you can open all the locks in the world."

Haruhi frowned and crossed her arms, "Very funny. At this point you're lucky you're still member of the brigade."

Or maybe unlucky, I thought.

I looked around, searching for something that could help us open it. And more and more I felt like Robinson Crusoe on his deserted island. Gathering tools and things to survive. Expect I was stuck with someone from the start. I was stuck with God. We could search the storage room we were before for some tools, but I didn't notice any during our last visit. So we had to work with things we got.

There was a fire extinguisher beside the door, but I didn't feel like using that. I scanned the hall again, there was nothing else of any use. So we had to comply.

I lifted it up and winced. Heavy. There's a funny story involving me as a kid, my friends, fire extinguisher and hospital that makes me a little uneasy around those red things, but I tell you that one some other time.

I got back to the door.

I brought the thing up from below my waist. Then I placed my weight into it and at the last moment everything accelerated and like a hammer the extinguisher connected with the lock making an irritating sound and... nothing happened.

"And you call yourself a man?" Haruhi shook her head, her arms still crossed.

"It will take a few tries, but it will give eventually, I'm sure of it," I coughed a few times, the sweat and the heat were back again. "I just need to put a little more strength to it."

"No, you have to put _some_ strength to it," She mocked me. "You should just leave the things you can't handle to people who can."

I placed the extinguisher on the ground and made a 'suit yourself' gesture.

She pulled up her sleeves and picked it up. Then she lifted the thing like nothing more than a paperweight and never stopping, still keeping that one motion, she destroyed the padlock. She placed the extinguisher beside the door and walked inside not caring about my opinion on what she just done.

I brushed away the sweat on my forehead and trailed after her. Like that was supposed to surprise me.

The room looked like any other classroom we went through that day. There were a few differences though. There was no furniture inside, not even the blackboard, and in the middle of the room laid some boards with rusty nails in them. There was dust everywhere and the walls were half painted. But that was just about it, it was hard to see, but I was pretty sure there wasn't any way out here. Haruhi pushed the light switch so we could examine further, no response. Without the lights, you couldn't almost see what you did, where you walked. I opened the door behind me, that would give us at least some light. But just as I let go the door closed by itself. It was probably too curved to stay opened by itself. I gave up, it wasn't that dark. Haruhi walked to the windows trying to open each of them.

"Damn!" She shouted.

Let me guess, they can't be opened.

"No," Haruhi shook her head in the dark, "They're frozen all over."

I sighed, "Oh, well."

And then it came back again. I began to water and I could swear that the temperature in the room jumped up a few degrees. Head began to pound. Dead weight in my lungs. Sounds went past like television and my stomach knotted. A premonition.

I looked around the room, scanning for some monsters the fear already taking over me. But Haruhi was still there, so I was safe.

"Let's get out of here," said Haruhi and began to walk towards me.

And then she tripped over something, landing on the pile of boards.

I ran up to her, "Are you all right?"

What the hell was I doing?

"Yeah, I just tri-"

And then the floor under her collapsed. Almost in slow motion I caught a glimpse of her horrified face as she was being sucked into a hole that was hidden under the boards. The boards threw me up and I landed on my butt beside the hole. I somehow managed to dodge it, but Haruhi fell down inside that pit.

At first I thought she was dead.

But when the dust settled I could hear something like a voice coming from down there.

"Haruhi!" I shouted.

"Down here!" she sounded far away.

Now I was confused. I wasn't going to save her, was I?

Then again... I couldn't just let her be. I couldn't just let her die.

That would be... I... No time to think.

I shouted, "Hold on!"

I got to my feet and ran to the hole, dropped to my knees and scurried to the ragged edge, my heart pounding then sinking, as I saw how far down she was. She was hanging onto a piece of metal piping with both hands, a full floor beneath me. Beyond that, darkness gaped. It was impossible to know how far she might fall.

I was drenched in sweat, but now I wasn't scared because my life was in danger, now I was scared because someone who tried kill me was in danger.

"Kyon," she gasped, looking up at me with frightened eyes.

"Don't let go," I said and tried to think.

I had to calm myself. I had to take a long breath and calm myself. But I couldn't, I was more scared then when I faced that scorpion thing.

"I don't know how long I can hold on..." she breathed.

Her whisper was somehow magnified. Reaching my ears as if I was a superman.

"Don't you dare let go," I said. "Or you're some little girl that can't pull herself up over a ledge?"

She didn't reply, but I saw her jaw tighten. Good, maybe pissing her off would keep her strong.

I was already on my feet again, "I'm coming."

And I ran outside the room, already figuring out the fastest way on how to get to a class below me.

Why was I trying to save her anyway? She tried to kill me.

Maybe I just tried to save a friend, maybe my God, maybe the world. Maybe I just wanted to save someone, to be the hero. To be something more than just the annoying and boring 'Kyon', to be my name, to be my family. Maybe I wanted all those people around me to hug me and pet my hair. Maybe I just wanted to tell Haruhi: 'Okay there, now I've given you life'.

Maybe the only way to get out of there, to be free, was by doing the things I didn't want to. Fight those monsters. Save Haruhi. Accept my punishment.

I needed to rebel against myself.

It was the opposite of following your bliss. I needed to do what I most feared.

As I ran, it seemed that moment would last forever. That you had to risk your life to get love. You had to get right to the edge of death to ever be saved.

And of course if I managed to save God, I could remember it every day and think: _If I could do this, I could do anything. _No matter what else I came up against, if I could save God when he got himself into trouble, well, any other situation would be a piece of cake. Even hell.

'Hero' wasn't the right word, but it was the first word that came to mind.

And almost immediately as I ran out the room, something flew at me. I ducked, caught a confused blur of red and green, of animal stink, and then the creature. I jumped to the other side of the hall and something attacked the spot I was just a second ago. I steadied myself and felt the unholy stench of those maggots enter my nose. It happened again. Where I stood when I left the room, now was a decaying pile of meat that resembled a dog. It was a big dog, the size of Alsatian, but not as furry as one. The decay went far with this one and I almost puked, the thing was almost falling apart. Where it wasn't decaying it looked similar to that Facehugger I encountered, it was blueish and semi-transparent. I didn't notice any eyes, but I didn't see its face yet.

I held my breath.

As if able to hear me holding my breath, it turned its head around, exposing itself completely. Its face has been knocked off. The top of its skull has been torn back, with the soft maggot infested brain inside. The jawbone and bottom teeth were intact. From the leftover of the mouth there was hanging a long tube like tongue that resembled the mouth of the scorpion a little. It dragged the tongue on ground, unable to keep such a long thing inside its destroyed mouth. I had to look away, not able to cope with the sight. I can describe the dog-like creature in detail but it would be like a monkey trying to explain a microwave oven to another monkey. I always felt my vocabulary lacking when I tried to describe those things, even to myself.

"_Kyon!_" Haruhi shouted from the other side of the door.

The creature turned to the door, it was blind but sensitive to sound.

I couldn't move. But if I didn't move...

I didn't have the time to think, but still I ran some fast equations in my head, the algebra of stupid decisions. She was in danger and if I wanted to help her I had to get there. I was in danger too, if I wanted that thing to disappear I had to get there.

So I had to run.

The dog started turning its half head around, tapping its foot. Maybe it worked like a sonar.

I couldn't stop the rush of adrenaline under my skin, but somehow managed to hold myself together.

I knew what I had to do, but I just stood there glued on the spot gritting my teeth.

There was another option...

A wild card that could blow a considerable hole in the decisions. I could use the knife I grabbed earlier to fight.

I gave the idea a moment to flicker in head, then snuffed it. I don't know if you ever experienced a full grown dog jumping at you, but believe me it's not a force you can stop with a dinner set knife. But I reached for the knife anyway. I tried to calm down and started to think. It reacted to sound, right?

I pulled the knife out of under my belt and threw it on the other side of the hall.

The dog's head twisted back and for a while stayed that way. When the echo of the knife falling somewhere faded, the dog began to run in the direction it came from dragging its hideous tongue on the floor.

I waited for it to get far enough for me to make a run for it.

Then I carefully took off my shoes...

The next thing I know, I ran like if I was a member of the track team. Taking off my shoes was just a lame attempt to give myself a little bit more time before it noticed me. As I ran, giving it all I got, I turned my head looking over my shoulder. The dog was there, pursuing me. I felt like being one of those gazelles I watched on National Geographic, I felt like being a prey of a super-fast cheetah. It couldn't be more than ten seconds since I began to run and it was already behind me. It was that fast. I was just a few inches from the door.

But just as I reached the handle the door opened hitting me in my face. I fell down on the floor, skidding on my back. From the other side of the door jumped another two dogs. They looked the same as that one, but were complete, their heads intact meaning they could see me and smell me just fine.

I covered my head with my hands. But nothing came.

Instead of me, the dogs started to attack the other dog behind me. Not like they tried to protect me, I guess the smell of the brain made them attack their mate. Like sharks smelling blood.

The dog couldn't see so it was overpowered easily. The other two opened their mouths and used their impossibly long tongues to suck blood out of the cracked head. Cocktail and two straws. That's how it looked. They were making sucking noises so horrible, I held the urge to cover my ears.

I raised up, taking the advantage of the situation. The dogs seemed harmless enough at the moment, but were blocking my way to the door. There was a faint sound of someone crying for help far away.

What the hell now!?

I was panicking, so I did the first thing that came to my mind.

I took off my jacket and held it spread open beside me like a matador. I started shaking with it, they stopped sucking the blood and turned to me.

The dogs began to growl at the jacket, and when I neared them enough they both jumped at it. They tore to bits, but I was already through the door behind them.

Not wasting a single second anymore, I jumped down the two sets of stairs that were in my way.

When I was finally on the first floor, I tried to run as fast as I could. But it was too hot and I was sweating so intensely I could taste salt on my upper lip. All of my bones have shifted one inch to the left when I jumped the stairs. Didn't matter, I swallowed the pain and gave it everything I got.

I heard barking coming after me. No matter, I was almost there.

If the door was locked, then I was in trouble, but it wasn't. I bolted through, slamming it behind me, dropping and skidding on my knees to the great hole in the floor.

She was there, still there, hanging on with only one hand now, and I could see that she was slipping.

I dropped to the floor and shot out my arm, grasping her wrist even as her whitened fingertips let go.

"Got you," I panted. "I got you."

Haruhi's expression was that of a child about to cry. I rocked back on my heels, lifting her out of the hole, feeling a satisfaction that I never knew existed. I saved a life. It was the sure, easy knowledge that I had done the right thing, and done it well. I pulled her out of the hole, using my body as leverage, it was quite a task, but piece of cake compared to what I've encountered before. I pulled her practically on top of me in a rough embrace.

Instead of pushing away, she let me hold her for a moment, clinging to me. She'd been so sure that she was going to fall, to die... Maybe that wasn't like her at all, she was weird, she was something close to God. But she was scared, and that's what makes us human. Fear.

But the moment didn't last very long...

"Get your stinking hands off me you pervert!!!"

As if you can gang up on God and bully him around.

Haruhi started screaming, kicking her heels into my shins and twisting from side to side, but I continued to hold her trying to comfort her. No... that's a lie. I have to face it, I tried to comfort myself. I was literally clinging to hope. I didn't want to die and those dogs could still be after me. I just tried to survive. Haruhi was screaming, and her fingernails dug into my hands, the soft skin between my fingers. She dug into the skin on the back of my hands until I got her around the wrists and twisted her arms up and away from her sides.

This is the life I got. Somehow this break always happens. This power struggle. No matter how great you think you are, at some point you'll find yourself here.

It wasn't about love and hate, it was about control.

The moment I let her go free, I stepped back.

Her hands in fists, Haruhi leaned toward me, her hair hanging in her face. Her uniform twisted tight around her body, the neckline torn on one side so her shoulder showed, bare. She kicked off her shoes so now she was barefoot like me. Her eyes behind the dark snarls of her hair, her eyes were reflecting the lights we turned on.

She looked wicked. A wicked witch. A crazy God. Twisted. She wasn't someone I would save anymore. Now she was a stranger.

And through her teeth, she said, "Be careful what you're trying to do, I can defend myself. I can."

And I finger-combed my hair. I straightened and tucked the front of my shirt smooth.

I told her to stop being ridiculous. I told her I saved her life. I told her she owes me thanks and an apology.

And Haruhi said nothing.

Tough love.

And then, as if snapping out of it, she looked at me with those menacing eyes, "If you ever touch me like that without my permission again... I'll kill you."

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but here we go again.

Maybe this is a love story, maybe not.

It depends on how much I can believe myself.

And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I didn't know that already.


	4. The time has come

_A/N: So things are getting worse and worse and Kyon finally had enough... Anyway thanks for reading, hope you'll like it._

* * *

Chapter 4: The time has come

* * *

I saw myself as a reflection in the window. The image was wavering, untrue. I slipped a hand from my pocket and stared at it for two or three minutes, maybe longer. Time grew narrow, physical. My perception of self was identical and that allowed me to disappear. I became a lizard my skin the color of dust. Detached and cool as new money, untormented by echoes.

But also vulnerable, exposed.

"Listen to me! How long are you going to just stand there staring out of the window!?"

My reflection shimmered in the glass. I felt my eyelids turn into two broken curtains - just as I thought they were shut, they pulled themselves right back up.

"Hey! I'm talking, are you listening to me!?"

I stood there like I was waiting for a bus. I was funny, though. A clown in a messed up suit. My jacket just a torn pieces of cloth, my hands dangling out the sleeves like fish on a string. I left the ugly tie in the bathroom, sparing myself of the old pulling act. I might as well be a dead body waiting to be cleaned and shoved in a drawer.

It was too hot. But at the same time it wasn't hot at all. I didn't know what to think.

I could see my breath, it was that cold.

But even so I reeked with sweat and felt like a chicken grilling in an oven. I coughed from time to time and my bones felt they were made out of metal.

Still looking outside I zipped up my jacket, what was left of it. It was one or two in the morning, because by then it was quiet outside. We went back to the teachers' room after I pulled her out of the hole. She never thanked me, just kept asking why exactly I touched her. Since that I replied to her questions with yeah.

You just couldn't resit to touch, huh? Yeah.  
You know I could have pulled myself out, you just beat me to it. Yeah.  
I knew you were just a perverted jerk-off Kyon, but this!? Yeah.  
Don't ever touch me like that again Kyon, hey are you listening!? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The compressor in the kitchen nearby shut off and I could hear the filament buzzing in each light bulb. I could hear my watch tick.

"Nobody's coming to rescue us," I said nonchalantly, as if just stating the fact.

Outside the window, the world looked normal. Not aware of all the snow that kept coming without a warning. Not accepting the fact yet. Like me at the beginning of this story.

From that far away as our school was, the world outside looked perfect. Perfect and safe and happy.

I saw some vehicle ride in the snow, trying to groom it. As far as we were, we heard just a dull swoosh and it was gone. It didn't even slow down to check on the lights. Ignorance is bliss.

And this is how we must look to God. As if everything's just fine.

This is how I looked to Haruhi, as if we were just locked inside the school and nothing else. No monsters trying to tear off my head. No manhunt against Kyon.

"So we have to wait until the sunrise," Haruhi stated the thing I feared the most.

Another six to seven hours to survive through.

"Another six to seven hours hearing you complain about how I saved you," I said finally looking away from the window.

Haruhi turned to her side, irritated, "I don't know why I shouldn't charge you with assault."

Maybe because you care about me.

And Haruhi said, "No, that's not it."

Maybe you won't blow the whistle because you do the same to Asahina-san all the time and I have evidence.

And Haruhi didn't say anything. She turned to me and pulled up the side of her shirt and jacket. The skin on her ribs, under her arms, was white with purple blotches.

Tough love.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Grabbing you wasn't right."

I pinched the crease in my pant legs and pulled them up to show her the purple bruises on my shins.

"That's different," Haruhi just looked at her nails, uninterested. "I was defending myself."

In my mind I replied: I'd like to see things from your point of view, but I can't seem to get my head that far up your ass. But I wasn't exactly planning to commit suicide so I kept it for myself.

I didn't try to push it further, I just slid back a chair and sat down. I needed to rest for a while, take a little breathe in. It felt like eternity since I breathed normally, without adrenaline treading through my veins, without the fear seeping through my mind. I just sat and steadied my mind. I relaxed my shoulders and allowed them to press into the chair. I felt the tension trickle down into each finger, then relaxed and imagined the tension draining out through each fingertip. I imagined listening to a baseball game over the radio. I imagined my mother telling me to throw out the garbage. I imagined me doing my homework. I imagined watching evening news with my parents and my sister.

None of that was real. But what was most important is I wanted that to happen. Just wake up from this nightmare and live my usual boring day.

I opened my eyes and just stared at Haruhi. She just sat there all quiet, which was weird. Almost unreal. She sat in a chair opposite to mine, holding her legs to her chest as if trying to cope with the cold. Haruhi was looking out the window scanning the streets for any sing of a rescue squad coming.

The sight was surreal when you thought about it too much - the God watching the world in grief, unable to do anything beside keeping herself warm.

But there was something else out of the place.

"Do you hear that?" I said, looking outside.

"Hear what?" Haruhi shifted her head in my direction.

"The silence," I said. "If it weren't for the fridge our ears would start ringing from it."

After months spent in the brigade, I forgot how silence was so golden. The feeling was strange, I could think again with nothing to occupy my thoughts. But I wasn't content at all. Something about all this silence just made me uneasy. I'm one of these people who need their television or stereo or radio or audio device playing all the time. I'm one of these people so scared of silence. Couldn't make it through the day without the laughter of the dead coming from the television.

These days, that is our idea for home sweet home.

This siege of noise.

Haruhi broke the silence, "You're right Kyon. It's almost as if we were dead, or in another dimension. Or in space."

Looking up, out of the building and into the night sky, I couldn't see the stars. The snow storm prevented me from seeing it. I remember that when I was a kid someone once told me that stars are the best part of being alive. On the other side, where people go after they die, they can't see the stars. Think of deep outer space, the incredible cold and quiet. The heaven where silence is reward enough. 'Paradise' wasn't the right word, but it's the first word that came to mind.

And maybe we were really dead. So nothing I said mattered anymore.

"I had to do it..." I spoke up, still trying to find some evidence of a sky. "Something just kept telling me to do it."

Haruhi just turned to me dumbfounded, "What are you talking about?"

"I felt like someone told me to save you," I replied. "Like if God gave an order."

That feeling wasn't anything new.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips on TV and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. It's the Big Brother filling us with need.

At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.

Haruhi went silent.

I did the same.

We just sat there, with nothing but the water tap, the light-bulbs and fridge to fill the silence.

"Bullshit," I said suddenly, laughing at my own stupidity. "There is no God. I don't know what's gotten to me, what I'm talking anymore."

And then I felt the temperature drop again, as if on cue. I turned to Haruhi, she stared out of the window quietly, coldly without emotion. Like a convicted killer. Like Nagato. She looked like if I said, kiss my ass.

She was silent for a while, then spoke up, her voice the sound of doom, "How can you be so sure?"

Her words stung in my ears like poison. And just as she finished her sentence, the lights began to flicker. For a second it looked like a club effect gone wrong, but then they ran out for good.

"Not again," Haruhi looked around the darkness and stood up. "We have to switch back the breaker again, so get up!"

I just sat there looking outside.

She walked over to my chair and kicked it from the underside, "Now!"

But her commands fell upon deaf ears, or ears that knew better.

I pointed outside the window, "Not this time."

Outside it looked like the world was sucked, blown out, like if nothing but the storm was behind the glass. It was just dark and a little white, but the darkness overwhelmed. No lights in the distance, no tinted red feeling the street lights gave. What happened was more than clear, the electricity went out in the whole town. Could be just a tree that couldn't hold the weight of the oncoming snow and fell over the cables, could be a transformer fault – I wasn't sure. But with everything I saw that day, it seemed just as the next phase in the ice Armageddon plan.

It was night now so it wasn't like before, I couldn't see a thing.

In other words, with the lights out the true horror was about to start.

I felt a cold knot grab around my stomach as I stood up.

"What are we gonna do!?" Haruhi said voicing my fear.

"Did you find any flashlight when we searched for the phone before?" I asked trying to keep a cool mind.

"No, but there were some matches in the kitchen!" She exclaimed and hurried over there.

I trailed after her, stumbled into something that felt like a chair and continued. I couldn't see anything. I walked like a zombie with my arms spread out before me and when I felt the wall, I walked beside it constantly feeling it with my fingers.

Then I grabbed something warm and soft.

I heard a screeching sound and small light flickered up into my face.

"I thought we were over this," said Haruhi, an inch away from my face.

"Huh?" I was dumbfounded for a moment, not sure what she meant.

"Your hands off, NOW!" As she shouted out her command, I knew what I was touching.

I put my hands away immediately and apologized, "Sorry."

She shook her head muttering something about me, axe and my hands, and handed me the matches, "This is useless, I'm barely able to see your face."

As she did the match came to an end and burned my finger. No doubt she did it on purpose. It sure was useless, the matches were some weird short kind that didn't last even ten seconds.

I struck another match and her face was lit again.

"Remember that party the student council threw for our homeroom teacher a few days ago?" I said suddenly, "The one where I was 'democratically' chosen to buy that big expensive cake."

Haruhi smiled a little, "Of course I remember it, how could I ever forget, those candles worked perfectly."

I was already opening the fridge hoping for some leftovers. I needed another match to see the insides. There was last piece of the cake left, with only three candles stuck inside. I lit two and took them all out, pocketing the one which was unlit. Why was it important? When I brought the cake to school, Haruhi got into one of her funny moods and decided to play with the teacher a little. The candles were the kind you can't blow off, the kind that just lit back up every time you tried.

I scanned the room using the candle and it worked surprisingly well, "Can't believe this crap is actually handy."

It couldn't be compared to a flashlight, but it was much better than the matches. It wasn't perfect though, one wouldn't last longer than five minutes, giving us some ten minutes to get a hold on on something better.

"Let's check the store room for some flashlights," I said and Haruhi nodded grinning.

"What do you have to smirk about?" I asked.

She broke down into a laughter, "You look like a complete idiot with the candle Kyon."

"Well, so do you." I sighed. "Let's just get going."

I turned away and started walking. But looking back, I saw Haruhi laughing into her hand.

She was laughing at me.

Haruhi stopped laughing when I saw, but her smile was still there.

The feeling was, that I was trying to survive there and she was just lost inside some crappy carnival haunted house.

Is this some sort of a game for her?

I told her to wipe the smirk off her face.

She shook her head, "Jeez, you sound like my father."

After that we grew silent again. We walked the dark hallway and I started to sweat. Again, something started to drill its way outside my skull. My bones hurt and I felt that it wasn't me who moved my limbs, felt them moving against my will. Like if something was controlling me, they were that dull. I felt claustrophobic in my clothes. The migraine was same as ever before, only way worse. That premonition was back. The heat and the sweat and the dullness, all the same. I grabbed my head and held the urge to beat myself to death.

By the time I realized what was happening it was already too late...

"What's that?" Haruhi sniffed. "It's that weird smell from the basement again."

She was right, the stench was there. It always came before something came, like a warning.

The ground was strangely sticky each time I tried to make a step. I stopped Haruhi with my hand, she looked at me surprised, but didn't say anything about me not touching her. I crouched and brought the candle to the floor.

The whole floor was covered in blood.

Well, not the whole floor. Just a stain in the middle, more like somebody bleeding really bad limped through here. Or was dragged.

I heard her step back, but I didn't even flinch I was too used to it by then to react to something like that. Like a war veteran.

"What the hell is that!?" She said, her voice more like a cry.

Huh? There was something wrong about what she just said.

"You can see it?" I was surprised, already going through the possibilities.

Haruhi was taken aback, "Of course I can see it! So much blood... How could it...?"

And then the gears inside my head clicked together. If she can see the blood, it's not a blood of those monsters. It's some real person bleeding. Someone who won't disappear after she comes into the room. Someone _real_ in a real danger.

I shot up and looked around. With the light I had at the moment I couldn't tell which way was it leading to and which way was it leading from.

"Okay, you go that way and I cover this one," I pointed into the darkness behind Haruhi. "Here."

I gave her the matches and the spare candle.

Haruhi's expression switched from shocked to determined, and without further ado she turned around and ran into the darkness. I watched the hope that kept those monsters away from me for a while and then ran my own direction.

But you can't keep making mistakes like that forever...

At the end of the hallway was a door, the handle smeared with blood. I paused for a single second before I opened the door. A single thought crossed my mind, I didn't want to go inside. I felt just as I did during my first day in school when I was a little kid. I wanted my mom to hold my hand and pull me out of there. In short I was scared, I really didn't want to go inside. But still I turned the handle and pushed the door open, telling myself nothing's gonna happen, telling myself I have to do the things I most fear.

I quickly scanned the room and saw a collapsed figure in the middle. Some girl holding her chest with her back to me. I never seen her before, but she had this school's uniform. I quickly stepped over her and pulled her face into view.

A second after I rolled her over and saw her face, I got up walked to a nearby wall and started to vomit.

The skin on her face was wilted and her uniform was stiff and blotched with the fluids dripping and leaking out of her body.

Her eyes were collapsed into dark sockets. Her mouth was hanging open with some sort of liquid spewing out. Her nose was lost, just two dark holes, her shirt was loose resting low on the exposed collarbones. Her intensities laid hanging from her stomach and she held them as if she tried to put them back inside. The expression on her face looked as if she tried to put a puzzle together, but the pieces no longer fit.

When my vomiting was nothing more than a choke, I turned around and leaned back on the wall.

And just like that little boy who held his mother's hand, on the stairs leading to school eternity ago, I began to cry.

Picture this little spaz about waist high with a handful of hair, combed and parted on one side. Picture the icky little shit smiling in old school photos with some of his baby teeth missing and his first adult teeth coming in crooked. Picture him wearing a stupid sweater striped blue and yellow, a birthday sweater that used to be his favorite. Even that young, picture him biting his dickhead fingernails.

This is the stupid little weasel who, for sure, used to be about the stupidest little rat fink crybaby twerp that ever lived.

The little cooz.

Picture this all being his fault. The little annoying shit did it again.

This bogus little Benedict Arnold just stood there looking at the dead girl, and did nothing. This wimpy little squealer just stood there, watching the dead eye sockets. The air was too cold to breathe more than a mouthful at a time so this little mucous membrane tried to breathe twice as fast.

He didn't run away. He didn't do anything.

Our little crybaby just kept looking straight at the girl. His eyes watered, and when he shut them he could still see the girl, red, right through his eyelids, through his own flesh and blood.

Years ago, his mother told him that he had nothing to worry about. That it's going to be all right. It's just a path that we all have to take.

The kid stood there, shivering now, trying not to move, the dead body there staring into his very soul and the Mommy held his hand, telling him how someday it will teach people everything that she's taught it. Someday it will be a doctor saving people. Returning them to happiness. Or something better than happiness: peace.

It'll be respected.

Someday.

That was after the Easter Bunny turned out to be a lie. After Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and Saint Christopher, and this stupid, stupid kid still believed the Mommy.

Someday, when he's grown up, the Mommy told him, the kid will come back here and see how he's grown and laugh at how he was scared of school.

The kid's bare arms shook with the cold. And the kid tried to feel warmer, but no matter how horrifying it was, the dead body didn't give off any heat.

My ears ached with the cold. I felt dizzy and hyperventilated. My chest was all dimpled chicken skin. And this little ejaculate told himself, "For real, I deserve this."

This was all my fault, if I didn't tell her 'Bullshit' if I wasn't so boring and against everything, maybe nothing that happened today would be real. Maybe the world wouldn't come to an icy end.

And even in all this cold I was hot.

And I rolled my shoulders back and imagined that I was standing before a firing squad.

And sure as hell, this little brat deserved everything. He deserved whatever he got. This was the deluded little idiot who really thought the future would be any better. If you just worked hard enough. If you just learned enough. Ran fast enough. Everything would turn out right, and his life would amount to something.

And his mom released her grip on his hand and he was alone.

"You'll see," the Mommy said. "This will be worth a little suffering."

It's hard to swallow, but I am this stupid, lazy, ridiculous little kid who just stood shaking, squinting at the dead body, an idiot who thought the future would be so bright. Picture anybody growing up so stupid he didn't know that hope is just another phase you'll grow out of. Who thought you could make something, anything, that would last forever.

And then when I cried enough, I saw something strange. The walls all around began to peel off. Some unknown force was pulling off all the color on the walls. Like if it was just a wallpaper. Under the wallpaper of color, the walls were just gray. And we all know what that meant.

Somewhere in the distance a siren went off, the army kind that was used each time someone bombed a city.

And then the dead body began to slowly rise. The girl dead as she was before, staggered to her feet as if her legs weren't her own. She raised up using the ground as a leverage. She stumbled blind and clutched the cold ground with smears of rotted paste that exposed the bones inside each hand.

For some reason a crappy movie line went trough my head: _Here I am. It's payback time. I dare you to. Come and get me._

But I couldn't move. I wasn't paralyzed, but it seemed my body weighted ten thousands tons.

And the girl was up and she made her way toward me. She made gurgling noises, trying to speak, but her moldy neck showed me that her tonsils fell apart.

We are all part of the same compost heap.

And then the girl's skin began to peel off, just as the walls. Expect where the shell fell off it wasn't gray, through the cracks she was transparent blue.

She moved for me, but I couldn't move. Not that I didn't try to of course. I tried to move my legs, but they were too heavy, the feeling was that I was the first astronaut on Jupiter. I could move with my fingers, but everything I was capable of was making a fist.

By then her skin peeled off completely, I felt my heart skip a beat when I saw her true form. It was a celestial, one of the giants that destroyed the world. Only it was the same size as me. The scene was surreal, celestial dressed in rags of that girl's uniform was coming for me.

And then it was there just before my face, and it tilted its head as if examining my expression. The red goofy face smiled.

It raised up its arm and moved for my stomach. My eyes moved frantically, but I couldn't stop it. I couldn't fight it.

The pain was different from anything I have ever experienced before. I cried out, and looked down. Its hand was inside my chest, all the way up to its biceps. The sound of my meat giving away was heavy and rich, it was the sound of doom.

My eyes relaxed and the world blurred into unfocused gray. All my muscles went smooth and long. My eyes rolled up and my knees started to fold.

This is how it feels to die.

And then my knees folded, and I hit the floor in three stages, my ass, my back, my head.

And the siren was still going off, so loud I couldn't hear myself think. As if I ever think. As if I ever could think. The siren filled me. Big Brother. It occupied my mind, the way an army does a city. While I laid there slowly dying, I felt I was being delivered to God and reunited with humanity, the siren wailed, drowning out everything.

And I was glad.

-

It was malicious endangerment this time or reckless attack. There were so many laws the little girl couldn't keep them straight. It was third-degree harassment or second-degree disregard, first-degree disdain or second-degree nuisance, and it got so the girl was terrified to do anything except what everybody else did.

Anything new or different or original was probably against the law.

Anything risky or exciting would land you in jail.

That's why the girl was so eager to talk to her father.

He had been out of country for only a couple weeks, and already stuff had started to happen.

There were so many laws and, for sure, about countless ways you could screw up.

_Have you any idea where he is?  
What do you think he's doing?_

Questions the people asked the girl, questions her mother asked.

And the little girl just waited.  
The little girl just watched.  
Listened.

People had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become. With the whole world property-lined and speed-limited and zoned and taxed and regulated, with everyone tested and registered and addressed and recorded. Nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy.

On a roller coaster. At a movie.

Still, it would always be that kind of faux excitement.

You know the dinosaurs aren't going to eat the kids. The test audiences have outvoted any chance of even a major faux disaster.

And because there's no possibility of real disaster, real risk, we're left with no chance for real salvation.

Real elation. Real excitement. Joy. Discovery. Invention.

The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom.

Without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace.

Unless everything can get worse, it won't get any better.

This is all stuff her father used to tell her, when the little girl first asked how is it possible for the world to be so boring.

He used to say, "The only frontier you have left is the world of intangibles. Everything else is sewn up too tight."

Caged inside too many laws.

By intangibles, her father meant the Internet, movies, music, stories, art, rumors, computer programs, anything that isn't real.

Virtual realities. Make-believe stuff. The culture.

The unreal is more powerful than the real.

Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it.

Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last.

Stone crumbles. Wood rots.

People, well, they die.

But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.

If you can change the way people think, he said. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. If you do that, you can change the way people live their lives. And that's the only lasting thing you can create.

If you'll ever have the power, the means to change the world...

Don't think, just do it.

-

I woke up violently, touching my chest. My palms were hot. With one of my hands I touched myself, my face, my thighs, I searched my broken guts for warm, wet cavities. But I was all right, no hole anywhere. The air was trapped inside. The mingling, intimate stench of wet carpet and leaking radiator. It was still too dark to see. Judging from the shapes around me, I was in the infirmary.

I wondered why I was still alive. I should die in that room the moment the celestial touched me. But I was alive. I looked at my body, no evidence of anything.

"How do you feel?" asked Haruhi beside the bed. "You really scared me you know."

I stared at her a tick too long. I felt cold and hot as hell at the same time. I was freezing. My hands were burning. I felt sterile.

"I feel better." I said. "What happened?"

She turned her head, "You collapsed in some room, you were unconscious when I found you."

There's a little clock with glowing hands on some shelf beside her head. For one hour I was in the dark.

What about the body? The blood? The celestial?

And Haruhi's eyes lit up with curiosity, "The what?"

And that concluded everything. The more the monsters appear, more things stay the same.

And Haruhi said, "Is that what you found there!? Is it connected to alternate realities? Is that a kind of a physic power you developed? Or is it some kind of voodoo magic curse?"

And then something snapped.

And fast as sneezing, gritting my teeth, I told her: "You're a fucking mad insane lunatic."

And Haruhi winced.

I told her, I'm tired of being jerked around. Okay? So let's just not pretend. You are not God. You are not going to make me feel anything. You are not going to get to me.

You are a stupid, callous, scheming bitch. End of story.

I was sick tired of everything.

Suzumiya Haruhi. Asahina Mikuru. Nagato Yuki. Ryoko Asakura. Tsuruya. My sister. My mom. Some days, life just looks like me versus every stupid chick in the whole damn world.

With one hand, I grabbed Suzumiya Haruhi around the arm and yanked her toward the door.

Nobody's going to trick me into feeling Haruhi-God-like.

"Listen to me," I said. I shouted, "If I wanted any of this shit happening, I'd go to a frigging movie!"

And Haruhi smiled and said, "I knew it, you know something about all this. About us trapped in the school. I figured it out Kyon, you're hiding something from me! Spit it out!!"

"Shut up!" I said. "Come on."

I was going to prove to everyone that there is no God. Anybody's true nature is bullshit. There is no human soul. Emotion is bullshit. Love is bullshit. And already I was dragging Haruhi down the hallway.

We live and we die and anything else is just delusion. It's just passive chick bullshit about feelings and sensitivity. Just made-up subjective emotional crap. There is no soul. There is no God. There's just decisions and disease and death.

What Haruhi is, isn't a God, what she is a dirty, filthy, helpless harassing sexaholic, and she can't change, and she can't stop, and that's all she'll ever be.

And I was going to prove it to everyone.

"Where are you taking me you asshole!!?" Haruhi shouted, stumbling.

I said, "I'm taking you into the chapel of Haruhiism."

Already, I was imagining junk so as not to trigger too fast, stuff like pets soaked in gasoline and set on fire. To make time stand still. To fossilize the moment. To make the fucking last forever.

She's the child of a lunatic. Not a child of God.

Let God prove me wrong. He can nail me with a lightning bolt.

I was going to take her on the frigging altar of the newly formed Haruhi religion.

I was going to take her on her freaking desk.


	5. I have no mouth and I must scream

_A/N: Soo, what's gonna happen after things got out of the hand in the previous chapter?? Will Haruhi really let him do it so easily? Just read it, anyway we're slowly reaching conclusion here. Thanks for reading in advance._

* * *

Chapter 5: I have no mouth and I must scream

* * *

That got your attention, huh? Thought so, it's a good camp fire story.

Sorry? Do I feel sorry? What would I feel sorry for?

In fact I'm more disappointed in You than in myself. You should've hammered me with a lightning bolt. I mean, you're God, right? I'm just an asshole. I didn't even take off Suzumiya Haruhi's clothes. Still with her ribbon around her neck, dangling between her breasts, I didn't even try to take off her skirt.

I threw her onto the desk, as I did the desk slid all the way to the window with Haruhi on top. I pushed away her hands that tried to stop me and overruling it as an unnecessary pain in the ass I torn open her jacket. Her chest was rising and falling fast as she was breathing violently. I grinned, she was embarrassed. Hah. She was blushing so much even her arms and legs were red.

I felt good, I felt powerful, I felt alive.

Avoiding them all that time, I looked into her eyes. The look she gave me was a mixture of disgust, terror and fear. She was looking at me as if I was someone else. As for me, I felt as if I was looking through a broken window, everything was shattered.

Then, giving up, she let her shoulders slump and pulled her hands away from me. She blushed deeper than tomato and looking into my eyes she said, "Go fast." She said, "I want you to stay in synch with my heart."

She was just laying back on her desk, looking into my eyes. I looked at her. No cross. No tortured man. No crown of thorns. I looked around. No flies circling and sweat. No stink. No blood and suffering, not in this church of Haruhiism. No rain of blood. No plague of locusts.

See? She is not God. I don't know what she is, but she's definitely not God.

Haruhi, the whole time breathing hard, red from ear to ear, she put her hand on her chest as if trying to slow her racing heart. Then she leaned to me and her breath was warm. She touched my chin, my throat. She put her hand flat on my chest and told me to go on.

She stammered out almost inaudible,"W-What are you waiting for T-Takeshi?"

I looked behind her and saw the world enveloped in darkness. No stars. No celestials. Just snow. Just nothing. A world of intangibles. World where things that aren't real are more powerful than reality itself. World where our real names have no longer any value, expect identification when we create a bank account. World where you aren't your name, you aren't your family. World where our real name is as useful as our appendix. We're in a world where vows are worthless. Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken. Where oil barrels and currency are more important than human lives. Where love is scientifically proved as a chemical reaction. Where human life isn't worth anything, but crystallized pieces of coal are the best thing that you can ever possess.

A world of symbols, not the real world.

Maybe we could use a little apocalypse. A little trimming over here and there.

But still...

Our world isn't perfect, but still I think we live in a _paradise_.

And I wasn't Oppenheimer enough to destroy it like that.

I stepped back and staring at her I said, "You know why I won't force fuck you to shreds?"

Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it.  
Because nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.  
Breathe in. And then, out.

For a long time she didn't answer, she just looked up at me, as if I wasn't real.

So I continued, "Maybe the truth is I really want to like you instead."

And Haruhi blinked. For a while we were there like that, looking at each other. Haruhi still sprawled on the table, me up above looking at her.

Her eyes widened, "What... did you just say?"

You heard me.

And Haruhi, her eyes widened, she said, "Not love?"

This is cheesy enough moment, don't push it.

We stared at each other for a long time. Then she lowered her head and began to dress, her jacket torn, she shivered in the cold. I took off mine, what was left of it, and gave it to her. She took it. The next thing I know she kicked me into my stomach. I let out a groan of pain and bent over clutching my chest, she jumped down to the ground and planted her knee in my face. This sent me flying back. As I crashed back I took desk and chair along with me.

As I laid there the world began to blur, my vision twisted into two unfocused images. Then into more, my vision spidered. The fall kicked air out of my lungs and for a while I just laid there catching it. It was hot like hell. My eyes were going around the room and I couldn't bring them into focus.

Haruhi was walking toward me, a crazy demon walked towards me, "So what is this all about Kyon?"

I began to crawl back as I saw her figure nearing me, like a crab.

Everywhere, the monsters I encountered up till that moment started to appear, but just for a second then they were gone. The dogs, the scorpion things, the maggots. They began to flicker all around. Appear then quickly disappear. In and out, like a broken light-bulb.

"You orchestrated it all didn't you Kyon?" she walked toward me. "You just wanted to rape me right? All this time, everything led down to this moment. You had to be alone with me, you prepared no way to run for me, you had to have no means of contacting the outside."

I was stopped by a wall, escape was futile.

I began to cough like hell, my throat was dry so much I couldn't speak. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it wanted to tear its way out of my chest. On my skin there was a strange burning sensation, everywhere. I began to shake and couldn't stop it.

"You posses some powers don't you? I'm not sure if it's just weather manipulation or reality itself, but I think I figured it out..." Miss Nagasaki stopped walking. "You aren't human."

Haruhi bent over to me, so her face was at my level.

"I give you one chance, just one chance no more, to explain yourself," she whispered. "I'll consider your punishment according to what you have to say."

As Miss Hiroshima stopped talking the monsters hovering behind her appeared and stayed. A real firing squad.

I closed my eyes, still coughing I brought my hand to my mouth. For real, I deserved this.

And I gave into the heat that was overtaking me.

"Okay," I said. "I'll explain it."

"This better be worth my time," she put her hands on her hips and gestured to me with her head to begin.

I grinned, "My mom came from Italy already pregnant with me. This was the year after somebody had broken into a church in northern Italy. I found this once when I got bored in my mom's diary. According to what was written there my mom had gambled on some new kind of fertility treatment. She was almost thirty. She wasn't married, she didn't want a husband, but somebody had promised her a miracle."

I paused because I had to cough, when I stopped there was blood on my hand.

"This same somebody, they knew somebody who'd stolen a shoe box from under the bed of a priest. In that shoe box was the last earthly remains of a man. Somebody famous. It was his foreskin. This was a religious relic, the kind of bait used to draw crowds into churches during the Middle Ages."

Haruhi's eyes went wide, I smiled. Just what I was making all this shit up for.

I gathered my saliva in my mouth and spit, "It's in my mom's diary that six women were offered embryos created from this genetic material. Five of those never came to term. The sixth is me. It was the foreskin of Jesus Christ."

And Haruhi's mouth fell open.

She stepped back.

"How? Jesus Christ's body was never recovered, he was reborn," she said. "They can't have any body parts."

I expected this, so I needed to strengthen my lie a little. I went through everything I knew about God and made up something else. It was as if it wasn't me speaking, the heat. It was too hot. I grabbed my sleeve and tried to vent myself a little. No luck.

"According to the Catholic Church, Jesus was reunited with the foreskin at his resurrection and ascension. According to the story of Saint Teresa of Avila, when Jesus appeared to her and took her as his bride, he used the foreskin as her wedding ring," I said, my words getting out of my mouth before I spoke them.

What's going on with me?

When I saw the shock that came to her features, I laughed as hell.

Nothing of what I said was true, but making her see the world in my shoes just for a second paid up for everything I went through that day.

I was coughing, but at the same time I couldn't stop laughing, "Got you!!"

I began to laugh with everything I got, "You actually believed all that crap!! HAHAHA!!!"

Everything I said about me being Jesus Christ I made up on the spot. Why? Because I was hopeless, I just couldn't keep going with the thought of her being God. I was considering other things to lie about but chose Jesus Christ because I wanted to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. I could say that I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. I could tell her my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. I could tell her I got a fatal disease, one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. Anyway, when I was a little kid I always wanted one of these things to happen, but then I ran into Haruhi. In a way, this was liberating. I no longer had to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position was taken.

"Buwhaaha!!" I laughed into her face.

She reached her hand forward touching my forehead.

She winced, "You're burning Kyon!"

What are you talking about?

"You have a fever, we have to get you to somewhere warm," she took off her jacket and scarf. "Here."

She wrapped me into her own jacket, but I still laughed, spitting my words right into her face, "You are the baddest bitch in the world Suzumiya. Listen to me, you are God. Today, everything that happened, Haruhi... you did it all."

"You're speaking in tongues Kyon," she brushed it off as nothing.

I coughed, some of the blood falling to the ground. Haruhi slipped her scarf from around her neck and covered my own.

"Kyon! Hey, do you hear me!?" Her voice was just a dull thud. "Wake up! Kyon!"

As she stepped intentionally on my foot I came back to myself thanks to the pain.

But then my eyes began to close again, my body was falling, taking her down with me.

-

I opened my eyes. I knew the stench already, the infirmary again and she was there hovering over me. Her image like a ghost in all the dark.

"39,2 Degrees Celsius," she said putting some stick away. "Here swallow this."

What is it?

"I found some aspirin there in the closet, but the second candle ran out and I couldn't find any water or sink in all this dark," she put the pill into my mouth and made me to gulp it down.

It was sour.

"Sorry about before," she hanged her head. "I didn't know about the fever, you probably went delusional, I thought you really wanted to rape me you know..."

I just stared right at her. She had almost apologetic look on her face.

Haruhi said, "You still like me?"

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When they had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving them an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

If you want me to. I don't know. If you say so.

And Haruhi smiled and said, "There's something I wanted to show you, are you able to sit up?"

It's not like I have a choice.

I pulled myself up.

I don't know the difference between what I want and what I'm trained to want. I can't tell what I really want and what I've been tricked into wanting. What I'm talking about is free will. Do we have it, or does God dictate and script everything we do and say and want? Do we have free will, or do the mass media and our culture control us, our desires and actions, from the moment we're born? Do I have it, or is my mind under the control of one Haruhi's spells?

And she fished a sheet of folded paper out of her pocket, shook the paper open and said, "Do you know about 'scrying'?"

I don't know what I know. I don't know what's true. I doubt I really know anything.

I said, "Tell me."

She walked over to a little table beside the bed struck a match and I saw she picked up a little mirror, she walked back and sat down on the bed beside me, then she snuggled to me putting her head on my shoulder.

With the light of the match before my eyes, she snatched back the scarf from around my neck and dipped it in something, then she smeared it onto the mirror, "Witches spread oil on a mirror, then they say a spell, and they can read the future in the mirror."

"The future," I said, "great."

Right now, I'm not even sure I can read the present.

Haruhi held up the paper and read. In a dull, counting voice she read a few quick lines.

She lowered the paper and said, "Mirror, mirror, tell us what our future will be."

"I made up the 'mirror, mirror' part," Haruhi said.

She slipped her hand around mine and squeezed, but I didn't squeeze back. She said, "I tried this before with my compact, and it was like watching television through a microscope."

In the mirror, our reflections blurred, the shapes swimming together, the reflection mixed into an even gray.

"Tell us," Haruhi said, "show us our future together." And shapes appeared in the gray.

Light and shadows swam together.

"See," she said. "There we are. We're together, and you're smiling."

Everything was unfocused. I didn't know what I saw.

"And look," Haruhi said. She tossed her chin toward the mirror. "We're ruling the world. We're founding a dynasty."

But what's enough?

Power, money, food, sex, love. Can we ever get enough, or will getting some make us crave even more? Inside the shifting mess of the future, I couldn't recognize anything. I couldn't see anything except just more of the past. More problems, more people. Less biodiversity. More suffering.

"I see us together forever," she said.

If that's what you want.

And Haruhi said, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Just whatever You want it to mean. You're the one pulling the strings here. You're the one planting your little seeds. Colonizing me. Occupying me. The mass media, the culture, everything laying its eggs under my skin. Big Brother filling me with need. Do I really want a big house, a fast car, a thousand beautiful sex partners? Do I really want these things? Or am I trained to want them? Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now? Am I just under a spell that says nothing is ever good enough?

The gray in the mirror was mixing, swirling, it could be anything. No matter what the future holds, ultimately it will be a disappointment.

And Haruhi took my other hand. Holding both my hands in hers, she pulled me around, saying, "Look at me." She said, "Did Mikuru or Koizumi say something to you?"

You love you. I just don't want to be used anymore.

"What did they say?" Haruhi said.

And I didn't say anything.

"Don't do this," Haruhi said squeezing my hands, "do not shut me out."

She said, "I just want you to be happy."

That's easy, just put a 'happy' spell on me.

And Haruhi said, "Don't be a fool." She said, "They have drugs for that."

I don't want to keep making the world worse. I want to try and clean up this mess we've made. The population. The environment. The aliens. The time travelers. The espers. The celestials. The same magic that ruins my life is supposed to fix it.

"But we can do that," Haruhi said. "With more spells."

Spells to fix spells to fix spells to fix spells, and life just gets more miserable in ways we never imagined. That's the future I saw in the mirror.

History is filled with brilliant people who wanted to fix things and just made them worse.

I told her about what Koizumi told me. About how she 'chose' me. About how she wished me to be her immortal slave for all of eternity.

"What? He's lying," Haruhi said.

But how do I know that? Whom do I believe?

The gray in the mirror, the future, maybe it's not clear to me because now nothing's clear to me.

She said, "So if reality is all a spell, and you don't really want what you think you want..." She pushed her face in my face and said, "If you have no free will. You don't really know what you know. You don't really love who you only think you love. What do you have left to live for?"

Nothing.

This was just us sitting there with all the furniture around watching.

Think of deep outer space, the incredible cold and quiet where you go after you die... Paradise.

Hah. No way.

And I twisted my tongue in my mouth and spit out the pill she wanted me to swallow.

"What are you doing Kyon!? Are you insane, we have to lower the fever!"

I won't let myself being played anymore.

Outside the window, the snow storm lessened. And in the midst of the weakened storm, blue giants roamed the world, but they weren't destroying it. They just seemed to walk toward the school. She looked where I was looking, then she looked back at me.

"What are you looking at?" She asked.

She didn't see them. They were there in plain sight, but she didn't see them, she couldn't see them. They were dispatched to get rid of me. Her pill trick didn't work, so she sent her best recon killer squad.

Suddenly the darkness behind Haruhi lit up, a blue shape was looming there, the only light in the room. A celestial, the same size as the one that did me after we found the blood. The same one that touched my insides. The same one that killed me before. It started walking toward us. And the goofy red smile was there for everyone expect Haruhi to see.

I jumped down the bed.

Haruhi looked behind her, then at me, confused, "What are you up to?"

What I have left.

"And what is that?"

I run.

-

The sweat parted my hair all over. The boring mechanics of how our bodies work were all too clear, your lungs are sucking air to put in your blood, your heart pumps blood to your muscles, your hamstrings pull themselves short, cramping to pull your legs up behind you, your quadriceps cramp to put your knees out in front of you. The blood delivers air and food to burn inside the mito-whatever in the middle of your every muscle cell.

The skeleton is just a way to keep your tissue off the floor. Your sweat is just a way to keep you cool.

Whenever I looked over my shoulder, the celestial was there walking towards me.

So I ran faster.

The revelations came from every direction.

When I ran for about fifteen minutes, and it was still behind me, I couldn't believe I was the slave to this body, this big baby. I have to keep it fed and put it to bed and take it to the bathroom. I couldn't believe we haven't invented something better. Something not so needy. Not so time-consuming.

Sweat stretched my shirt down to my knees. The lining of my lungs felt the way a ladder looks in nylon stockings, stretched, snagged, a tear. In my lungs. A rupture. The way a tire looks before a blowout, that's how my lungs felt. The way it smells when your electric heater or hair dryer burns off a layer of dust, that's how hot my ears felt.

I looked over my shoulder again, it was there walking, only it seemed closer to me.

I ran faster.

My bladder felt nested between the top of my legs. When you pull plastic wrap off something in the microwave and the steam sunburns your fingers in an instant, my breath was that hot.

The celestial was still behind me.

I was running faster and faster and not getting anywhere. It was the illusion of progress. What I tried to think was my salvation.

What people forget is a journey to nowhere starts with a single step, too.

It's not as if the great coyote spirit came to me, but after I ran for twenty minutes, these random thoughts from out of the ozone just caught in my head. Silly things Haruhi told me, now they added up. Every stupid thing in the world, decaffeinated coffee, tachyons, alcohol free beer, telekinesis, UFO, made perfect sense, not because I was any smarter, but because the smart part of my brain was on vacation. It was that kind of faux wisdom. That kind of Chinese food enlightenment where you know that ten minutes after your head clears, you'll forget it all.

Those clear plastic bags you get a single serving of honey-roasted peanuts in on a plane instead of a real meal, that's how small my lungs felt. After twenty-eight minutes of running, the air felt that thin. My arms pumping, my feet jamming down faster and faster. At this point, my every thought was so profound.

The way bubbles form in a pan of water before it comes to a boil, these new insights appeared.

After forty-five minutes of running, every thought was an epiphany.

Paradigms were dissolving right and left.

Everything ordinary turned into a powerful metaphor.

The deeper meaning of everything was right there in my face.

And it was all so significant.

It was all so deep.

So real.

Everything those assholes in that school ever told me me suddenly made perfect sense. For instance, if Jesus Christ had died in prison, with no one watching and with no one there to mourn or torture him, would we be saved?

With all due respect.

Around one hour of my running, it all came clear. The whole universe, and that wasn't just the endorphins talking. Any more than one hour of running with a high fever and you enter a mystical state.

Fake or not, it was these kinds of big truths that swarmed inside me.

I looked over my shoulder, the celestial was three feet from catching me.

I began to laugh.

It's around one hour of constant running that I have to laugh. I'm gonna lose it anyway. My body. I'm already losing it.

It was time to bet everything.

I saw a shadow moving to catch me and dove down for the ground, I used my momentum and did a barrel roll diving through some opened door.

I rolled through the snow and instantly sprang up to my feet and spun around as I stopped sliding back. The first thing I realized was the cold. It was colder than Antarctica, it was cold as a devil's heart. There was snow everywhere, wind blew more snow fiercely into my face. Blinking it away, I realized that I was on the roof. I brought my hand to my mouth to stop the coughing. Then I slapped at my temples trying to center my vision, after that it all came down to me. The fatigue I didn't feel through all of my running-act fell down on me and I was breathing so fast I couldn't move for a while. I couldn't even speak, my vision began to black out and I realized that I was fainting. I scooped up some snow from the roof and smeared it on my face. It was so cold it burned, but it kept me from falling unconscious.

I looked up. The celestial was there, the door leading down back into the school behind it. It just stood there for a while watching the scene, enjoying every second of it. Then it stepped on the roof and turned around. It closed the door and twisted the handle, so it couldn't be opened.

I stood up, "So this is it."

Around the roof, I saw the other giant celestials approach through the city. They stopped and formed a circle around the roof, watching me. There was nine of them in total, including the one that chased after me.

The one that was on the roof with me began to walk toward me, I inched backwards but stopped and looked behind me. I stood on the very edge of the roof.

No way out. No more running. That's what the smile, it had plastered on its face, told me.

It told me, stop trying to buy more sand for your hourglass. We aren't selling any.

I smiled, nine celestials. As in nine circles of hell. Like a test ladder tournament of how much I could take. I wondered in which circle I'd land after this.

All right. No use running away anymore. My hands in fists, I pulled them to my face and readied myself. The small celestial tilted its head and then as if it understood, it did the same and walked toward me.

We circled around the roof our feet diving in the snow and with each step we were closer and closer.

When we were in the spitting distance I punched, but my fist just flew in the air and the celestial ducked and in motion too fast to see was behind me.

And then the celestial got me into full nelson, and rammed my face into the snow until the concrete roof was visible and it rammed my head into the ground until my teeth inside snapped off and planted their jagged roots into my tongue.

With the teeth planted in my tongue, I tasted blood.

The world around started to dim, but I kicked my consciousness to stay, just a while longer. Absorb it, survive it. The celestial dropped my head and stepped away, its back to me. It thought I was dead.

"Not fo fawst." I said with my broken mouth.

I stood up. I spit some teeth and made the same posture I did before.

The celestial shook its head and pointed to another celestial behind me. One of the celestials, standing around the school behind me, stepped on the roof and shrank to just about my size, but I noticed it was bigger than the last one. It walked toward me.

I did an uppercut with my right followed by a straight hit with my left that turned out to be just a sucker punch.

And again the celestial dodged it all and got behind me.

It put its knee between my shoulder blades. The celestial pulled both my arms behind my back, and slammed my chest into the floor. My collarbone, on one side, I heard it snap.

I cried out and slumped over.

Something was banging on the door to the roof. Hollow metal. Someone began to shout, Kyon.

You aren't your name.  
You aren't your family.

I woke up in the snow and it was time for number three. With the blood pooling around my tongue, I wasn't sure if I coughed or laughed anymore.

Using my good arm, I pulled myself up again.

Celestial number three seemed to know what works for me, he used a sleeper hold that gave me just about enough air to stay awake. Number three held my head in the crook of its arm, the way you would hold a baby or a football, and hammered my face with the pounding molar of its clenched fist.

Until my teeth bit through the inside of my cheek.  
Number three pounded until its fist got raw.  
Until I was crying.

How everything you'll ever love will reject you or die.  
Everything you can create will be thrown away.  
Everything you're proud of will end up as trash.

One punch later my teeth clicked shut on my tongue. Half of my tongue dropped to the floor and got kicked away.

After it began to walk away, I brushed my mouth and began to pull myself up again.

Another celestial shrank, but was bigger than the last one,"You are fighting a losing battle. You cannot survive this. You will die. Stop fighting. Make it easy for yourself. Accept your fate. You. Will. Die. Here."

It didn't speak, but the voice was there, playing inside my skull.

It pulled me up to my feet and punched me into my stomach. Breath escaped my lungs and all I could do was bleed on it. Then it got tired of me and threw my body a few meters back.

I fought the darkness that was overtaking me.

And I pulled myself up.

The voice was right about a losing battle, fighting them was like setting myself on fire to run towards water. But by then, I didn't care anymore.

The banging on the door continued, Kyon.

This one grabbed my ear like an angry teacher and began to spin me around on my own axis. For a while the world was a blur, then something snapped and I fell into the snow. The right side of my head was hot and throbbing. My throat felt sticky. I looked at the celestial and it threw half of my ear down the roof. After witnessing the scene with my ear, I threw up. Acid in my throat and nose. Dry heaves. I swallowed a mouthful of bile. I grabbed a handful of snow and put it to my ear.

"Yof canf flush mfe, buft I'll jufts kef eafing sfit..."

And I'll keep growing. With only the half of my tongue, I couldn't speak.

And I knew that I had to get up again.

And the voice was there, the pneumatic drilling machine, the celestial jackhammer inside my brain, it told me, "Face it. You are up against an unbeatable force. You have already lost. You have lost. Only death will set you free from your pain. Accept it. Surrender. Give up."

"I fon't..." I spat some blood, clearing my mouth.

I pulled myself to one knee, almost falling.

"I fon't..." But it was useless.

I won't let you guys erase this world.

And I pulled myself up again.

How many deaths left to endure?

Four?

Yeah there was four of them left, but they changed strategy, they ganged up on me all at once. And they didn't change their height.

I felt like I was watching a movie. The pictures before my eyes got two dimensional.

It was me against four giant celestials, I said, "Wfo's neft?"

There was no fear.

I saw one of them punching into the roof beside me in slow motion.

And then my feet no longer touched the ground, and I wondered what was happening to me. My body relaxed, then went rigid. The pictures blinking before my eyes slowed down like a silent film on a defective reel. And suddenly I was alone. I was floating. Up. Up. I was being lifted up by a wall of sound. The pictures blinked faster and faster and suddenly the filmstrip snapped and the wall of sound slammed into me - total, terrible sound. I flew. Then I merged with the concrete as I fell. The snow absorbed some of the impact. I was on my back, looking up, crushed by sound. I thought: _Is that the sky?_

I reached up a hand.

My reaction to my own death was nothing more than a highly intensified curiosity.

My jawbone was broken, I couldn't scream even if I wanted to.

My will to live amazed me.

I folded up into a ball and I panted.

Then I pushed myself to my knees, as something beneath the snow poked into my leg, distracting me. And I kept telling myself: I have to get to my feet again. It wasn't finished yet, still a few more villains to defeat.

Pain traveled round and round in my body. Everything was on fire. I was spinning. Spinning to my right, spinning to my left. My meat was in the snow around me. The ground was racing up to meet me. Blackness surrounding.

Steadying myself, I walked.

How much further do I have to go? Can I keep picking my feet and putting them down?

The answers seemed important, but I was unable to find them. Cold air slicing through the fog. The fog. The fog clouding my mind. I turned my head to see if I just left a window open, to see if it's all just a dream. Just some awful nightmare.

And agony wracked my body.

My mind drilled through the haze that consumed it and there was a sudden flash of girl in a ponytail, if I had any lips to smile with I would.

I didn't feel my arms and legs anymore. Whole body was throbbing with growing numbness.

Walking in the snow, I noticed the pain in my shoulder, there was something wrong with it. There was something weird with my chest and ear and mouth.

My left hand was wet and as I moved it in front of my face the red which covered it confirmed it all.

No, not a dream.

Cold and wet. Wet? Cold and warm at the same time. Around me, white, everywhere. Snow. Why the hell was I walking in snow?

My brain melted cause of the fever. Me, a cripple walking in snow forgetting how he got here.

"Kyon!" And then I heard someone stepping beside me in the snow, "Kyon! Are you okay!?"

I wanted to tell the boots something, but I couldn't speak.

"I got outside Kyon! I brought help, when you got locked in here the main door just opened, I don't understand, I called ambulance and I brought the othe..." She stopped talking abruptly, as if she just realized the state I was in. "Kyon!? What happened to you!!?? KYON!"

Behind her I saw more people, Nagato, Asahina-san, Koizumi, paramedics. They were all telling me something, but their voices were overlapping. My brain couldn't figure out what they were saying for a while.

Nagato, with her 'I have no mouth and I must scream' book representing all her concealed hate for all the humanity, said, "Wait."

Koizumi, with his fake smile that masked the indifference of him treating me like a dog he found, said, "Stop, let them look at you."

Asahina-san, with her premature act that was really just a mask to keep us all fooled and trust her completely, not ever questioning her confidential stuff, said, "Kyon-kun... please..."

The paramedics, their job just a routine, no doubt already betting if I pull through, said, "We can help you. Let us help you."

Across the sky came the whop, whop, whop of the paramedic helicopter.

With my broken mouth I yelled, "Go. Git ouft of here. Celestials everyfwhef."

And Haruhi said, "We know."

"It's not love or anything," Haruhi said, taking my hand into hers, "but I think I like you, too."

And the celestials moved for all of us and...

And nothing. Just like Y2K. The vision cleared and they were nowhere to be seen, there was no blood in the snow around me and my mouth wasn't broken anymore.

But it was just too hot.

Too hot to think.

Too hot to keep standing.

And I told everyone, forcing a smile, "I think I know what happened to dinosaurs. They went nuts."

"Kyon!? Kyon! Takeshi!!!"

And then I fell and my vision disappeared, as if you accidentally unplugged a television. Single thought flashed in my head before it happened, is it only in death that our names are useful?


	6. Mind screw

_A/N: It took a while, but I've finally wrote it. In this chapter I finished the plot I had in mind from the begining (Not everything was planned from the begining though), the loose ends get together. Things like: Kyon is pulling pranks!? He tried to rape her!? WHY!? WHY would she try to kill him!!!? But when I finally finished it and looked at the completed jigsaw puzzle it was me finishing the same puzzle, hence the name of the chapter. Anyway, enjoy!_

* * *

Chapter 6: Mind screw

* * *

In my father's house are many mansions. Of course, when the fever took over me in the snow, and my brain exploded inside my skull, I died.

Liar.

With the paramedic helicopter thundering toward us and Haruhi and paramedics and all of her made up imaginary people, with all of them trying to save me, I had to die.

This was better than real life.

And your one perfect moment won't last forever.

Everything in heaven is white on white. Everything in heaven is quiet, rubber-soled shoes.

There is no fever in heaven. There are no monsters in heaven. There's no one trying to kill you here.

Faker.

People visit me in heaven and tell me I'm remembered, that I'm just exhausted. That I'll get better.

The angels here are the Old Testament kind, legions and lieutenants, who work in shifts. They bring you your meals on a tray with a paper cup of pills. The Othello playset.

The first one to visit me was God Herself. She sat on a chair beside my bed and for a while just stared at me, shaking her head.

After a long while of silence, God asked me, "What do you remember?"

I remember everything.

God asked if I can tell the story from my point of view.

I don't know where to start.

"From the beginning," God said.

All right. From the beginning, let's see... I had a dream. In it a human sized lizard with a crown on its head...

And so I told God the story from my point of view.

Now God just stares at me and asks, "Why?"

Why do I have to cause so much pain for others?  
Why do I have to attack everything humanity worked for all these years?  
Is it because I finally see how boring the world has become?  
Is it because I finally realize what God's trying to achieve?

I look at God, her hair in a ponytail, and tell her that she's got all of this wrong.

We are not special.  
We are not crap or trash either.  
We just are.  
We just are, and what happens just happens.

And God says, "No, that's not right."

And I smile.

Yeah.  
Well.  
Whatever.  
You can't teach God anything.

-

"Severe type of pneumonia, at first it affected only his lungs and a slight fever was present," the doctor says. "But, the girl that was trapped with him claims he was delusional. Know what that means?"

The doctor seems to be testing the young nurse in training.

But she won't miss one chance to shine, "That the bacteria got into his brain? But still why he kept going like that?"

"Exactly, the bacteria got into his brain and created another version of events which caused him to act as he did. Right now he thinks he is in heaven. But he should be able to get out of it, complete recovery." The doctor says, scribbling something on his pad.

The nurse nods.

"All right, got some golf to attend to - when this IV finishes, change it to these two," the doctor instructs the nurse, pointing to the chart.

"Is it true that he almost froze to death on the roof of his school thinking he was saving the universe?" The nurse asks.

The doctor nods and shakes his head.

"Weird case indeed, but this isn't the first time I've handled something on this level before. But enough of him, let's talk about that da-"

Haruhi stops listening as the doctor and nurse walk away, their conversation growing too boring to follow. Anyway her mind's preoccupied at the moment, she's thinking about what Kyon told her just moment ago. About God, about humanity, about herself - the story from his perspective.

It's all too... strange.

Why would he attack the society at that level?  
Why would he compare everything to God?  
Why use so much biblical references?

Where the hell did those monsters come from?

At one point he mentioned that she was a God, what did that mean?

But first and foremost... will Kyon ever be the same again?

"I think Takeshi's going to be just fine," someone says from behind her.

Haruhi turns around and behind her is a woman in about mid-thirties, average looking. Haruhi never seen her, but she's bearing something oddly familiar about her.

Haruhi asks, "Are you his Mom?"

"Just call me Aki, I hate all the formalities, you're Haruhi aren't you?" the older woman smiles. "My son told me a lot about you."

"Really?" Haruhi says, a little surprised.

"Yeah, he is always telling stories about you and your companions and your adventures together," the older woman smiles. "Though some of his stories I find a little hard to believe."

Haruhi returns the smile as if understanding what she means and turns back to look through the hallway glass, at the bed behind it. Kyon's there sitting unmoving, he's indifferent, like an empty shell of his former self. His gaze's empty, looking at nothing in particular.

"Don't worry, he will be okay," the woman says.

"How can you be so sure?" Haruhi snaps back then blinks the anger away, "I mean... he changed, he's different. I know what the doctors say, but I don't believe them. No bacteria can make someone like that."

"Actually..." Kyon's mother begins. "This already happened to him before."

"What?"

"Yes, perhaps it would be best for me to explain it from the beginning," the woman breaths out as if preparing to endure something painful. "I've never really talked about this with anyone, but you deserve to know."

"When Takeshi was younger he was unstoppable, he was always running around, always causing trouble. He was pestering people, calling other children names, even bullying, pulling pranks. He was a kid and kids act that way, so we brushed it off as nothing. Then it got serious, his pranks were getting... deadlier. Once he brought a cow to the school and took it up the entry stairs. Cows can go up the stairs, but getting them down is a whole different story. There were three injured children and one so badly he almost died. Children gave him the nickname 'Kyon' at that time, we are still wondering what exactly it means."

Haruhi's speechless. Every time she called him that, she just reminded him everything.

"He was too young to answer for his crimes to police, so it was up to us to punish him. After we payed the fine and smart money we still didn't know what to do with him. We tried everything, but he was unable to focus his attention on something for longer than thirty seconds. We tried professional help, they diagnosed him with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and just gave him some pills which he wouldn't take. When his pranks got more violent, beyond the line of insects and animals and again he injured one girl, I decided it was enough. With my husband we sat down and thought up the best solution we could, we transferred him to another school."

"They called it 'The School of the Future', it was a catholic school led by American missionaries, but we didn't know that until it was too late."

The woman looks at Kyon behind the glass. Uninterested, he scratches his head.

"One day he came home from the school and was calm. No pranks, no running around. I kept telling myself to be happy about it... but... he was different."

"He got apathetic, cynical about things, we just wanted him to calm down. But since then... he just did what everyone else did. It was just like how he got his nickname, everything he did was by sheer inertia."

The woman stops talking.

Haruhi doesn't say anything.

Kyon's mother continues, "I should have listened to him when he didn't want to go there, but I just kept pressing and led him to the school anyway. I led Kyon there and picked up Takeshi later that day."

The woman stops for a while, recovering herself.

"Then one day Takeshi got sick. Doctors diagnosed it as a severe type of pneumonia, but said he could cure it home. He just had to take the pills and stay in the bed resting. But he wouldn't rest. I found him doing his homework when I got home, later that day he tried to walk out of the door telling us he just wanted to jog like every other day. At first we blamed the fever for it, then we discovered what the 'School of the Future' really was."

"As I said they were religious group that spread the word of God, it was a part of the Catholic Church so called Faith Movement. At first I found nothing strange about that, it was just a normal school with a few religious subjects, but then when he got the pneumonia I decided to visit the school. At first what they taught was just basic subjects, math, biology, etc., but then I stumbled on the 'religious hour' where they trained them to be the 'winners above devil'. They were telling the kids that Christ will cure you no matter what. Encouraging them to put down their glasses and try to read. That if they did take them off the God would grant them the ability to see without them. That you just had to believe. That didn't seem strange, but a while into the lesson I realized the full extent of what it meant. They were simply telling the near sighted people to take off their glasses before they decided to drive a car."

"That's why Takeshi tried to act just as he always did even thought he was sick. Day later, the pneumonia worsened. The doctors said it spread into his brain and that he got hallucinations."

"For about three days he was in a hospital, I used that time to transfer him back to his original school... but... when he got back, it was that apathetic changed Takeshi... And he was like that ever since."

Haruhi and the woman watch each other for a long time.

"I... didn't know..." Haruhi says.

"Don't worry, it's not your fault Haruhi, Takeshi will be just fine... he's just never going to be really himself again. Now if you'd excuse me I brought him some oranges," The woman smiles weakly and enters the hospital room to say hello to her son.

Haruhi stands there for a while, thinking in all the hospital noise. In the annoying smell of disinfectant that hospitals are known for. And it all made sense. The pranks, Kyon's increasing boldness, his visions and everything he told her about God. Now it adds up. That wasn't Kyon acting out of his character, that was Kyon coming back to his origins. The real Kyon.

Then she's pulled out of her daydream.

"So how is he?" Koizumi asks with Nagato and Mikuru behind him.

And Haruhi frowns and puffs up her cheeks, "That idiot? He's just a dead body that's waiting to be cleaned and shoved in a drawer!"

-

Everywhere, the words are mixing.

Words and lyrics and dialogue are mixing in a soup that could trigger a chain reaction. Maybe acts of God are just the right combination of media junk thrown out into the air. The wrong words collide and call up an earthquake. The way rain dances called storms, the right combination of words might call down tornadoes. Too many advertising jingles commingling could be behind global warming. Too many television reruns bouncing around might cause earthquakes. Cancer. AIDS.

The newspaper headlines mixing with hand-lettered signs. Leaflets stapled to telephone poles mix with third-class mail. The songs of street buskers mix with Muzak mix with street hawkers mix with talk radio.

We're living in a teetering tower of babble. A shaky reality of words. A DNA soup for disaster. The natural world destroyed, we're left with this cluttered world of language.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter anyway. There's no use to struggle, because you can't avert Armageddon anyhow. Really, just ask dinosaurs, if you think any of them survived.

Big Brother is singing and dancing, and we're left to watch. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but our role is just to be a good audience. To just pay our attention and wait for the next disaster.

I stop my hand just before opening the door to the SOS Brigade club.

I grin, the feeling is that I have the best seat in the house. Front row, center.

I throw open the door and say, "Anyone missing their favorite lapdog?"

Inside everyone expect Nagato jumps a little startled by my act, just what I was aiming for. Koizumi sits by the table some tabletop game opened before him as if he wasn't worried about my recovery at all and he smiles, his smile deserving a punch more then ever. Asahina-san stares at me for a while then the tea set she was holding falls to the floor and she puts her hands to her mouth gasping, same old same old. Nagato closes her book and looks up at me, bigger reaction than what I was expecting. And Haruhi stands up from behind computer, her expression unreadable. But we all know who I aimed that question at.

"Kyon..." she says.

"Right," I circle around the table and look out of the window. "I thought it was me who had brain problems. Were you experimenting with lobotomy or something?"

Haruhi shakes her head, "You! You're... okay?"

I grin at her, "What can I say? I'm hard to kill. I'm like a cockroach. You can step on me, but even if I won't survive I'll just keep coming back."

Haruhi looks up at me her eyes trying to tell me something.

"Besides, somebody needs to hold this bunch together," I say. "There's no way telling what's going to happen if I'd left you guys alone for too long."

Nobody laughed.

'Savior' isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.

"But let's get back to business," I finally break the uncomfortable silence. "I wanted to ask you something, I-"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see smiling Koizumi elbow Asahina-san. Who stares at me, her eyes filling up with tears.

"Well, maybe after the club," I reconsider, sparring myself of the foreseen consequences.

She takes it, which confuses me. Normally she would try to pry it out of me somehow unable to wait for even three seconds. Something's up.

During the club hours, others ask me about my condition. I answer them as best as I can, I lie. Well I don't exactly lie to them, I'm just averting to tell them the whole truth.

I look at Haruhi. She's quietly listening to me.

And then it gets to me. She knows everything. How I know, I don't know. I just do, it's that gut feeling somebody knows your every secret.

About me when I was eight. About my family problems. The ADHD. The pneumonia. The school of the future. Everything.

But, I'm not angry. Nor am I scared of what's coming. Instead, I feel at peace.

The feeling is that now we're even.

I know the truth about her. She knows about me.

Expect the truth about me is the normal kind. Not the reality-warper kind.

Nevermind.

Everyone is packing and Haruhi catches me as I put on my jacket, "So what did you wanted to tell me?"

I look around, "Not now the others might hear us."

"Why is it such a problem?"

I don't answer her until the others leave.

I clear my throat and begin, "I'll say it this way, were you ever in a successful relationship?"

She lets her jaw drop, "What?"

"Who ended your previous relationship?" I say.

"Me! Get to the point!" she shouts out.

I smirk, "So do you want the truth or the jedi truth?"

"What's jedi truth?"

A lie.

"Just tell me what you want already, or I'm out of here!!!"

All right. I heard rumors around town, there's a house where numerous victims spotted ghosts.

"Really? Then why did you wanted them to leave!?" She says, "Call others to meet us at the usual spot!"

Well the ghosts there appear only when there's two people or less.

Haruhi opens her mouth then stops realizing what I'm aiming for.

"Oh... All right, then let's check it out." She stops, "Only the two of us."

I nod.

That's the idea.

-

The crowds of people shoulder around us, the women in red coats and men in santa suits. People are eating marshmallows and chestnuts in paper cones. Snow is everywhere. Somebody steps on Haruhi's foot and she pulls it back, saying, "I don't believe I got talked into this."

"And don't take this for something it's not, all right?" she says, "I'd never-"

Let's not talk shop.

The ground is crisscrossed with thick black cables. In the darkness beyond the lights, engines burn diesel to make electricity. You can smell diesel and deep-fried food and vomit and powdered sugar.

These days, this is what passes for fun.

A scream sails past us. A glimpse of some little yellow haired girl. It's a carnival ride with a bright neon sign that says: _The Octopus Nightmare. _Black metal arms, like twisted spokes, turn around a hub. At the same time, they dip up and down. At the end of each arm is a seat, and each seat spins on its own hub. The scream sails by again, and a banner of yellow hair. Both the girl's hands are clamped on the guard bar fastened across her lap. A token coin bullets past us.

Haruhi is watching her, "Looks like fun."

See? World is not always just boring.

"I'm not so sure."

I pick up the token.

Why don't we try it then?

-

The ride was fun, but not enough to make her see that the world is the best just how it is.

In her boots, Haruhi picks through the snow and sawdust, stepping over the black power cables.

Holding out my hand, I say, "Here."

And she takes it.  
And I don't let go.  
And she doesn't seem to mind.  
And we're walking hand in hand.  
And it's nice.

My hand feels warm, and I think I've opened a new chapter with her.

The carnival rides thrash the air around us, diamond-white, emerald-green, ruby-red lights, turquoise and sapphire-blue lights, the yellow of citrons, the orange of honey amber. Christmas music blares out of speakers mounted on poles everywhere.

So did you ever rode a Ferris wheel before?

"What do you have me for?" Haruhi plays the know it all see it all face, but I know she didn't.

Everywhere, there are men and women, hand in hand, kissing. They're feeding each other shreds of pink cotton candy. They walk side by side, each with one hand stuck in the butt pocket of the other's tight jeans. Watching the crowd, Haruhi says, "Don't take this the wrong way, we're just friends."

You said you liked me.

"That was different. You were there freezing in the snow, I had to say something. You'd have no use for me dead, would you?" Haruhi turns away from me, "Besides, so what? Friends like each other don't they?"

Why are we holding hands then?

She doesn't answer. We look at one pair that got beyond the line of kissing.

There's no friendship between man and woman. Just foreplay.

Haruhi turns to me, "What did you just say?"

You're imagining things.

Haruhi looks up at the Ferris wheel, a ring of red and white fluorescent tubes holding seats that sway full of people, "That looks doable."

You scared of heights?

Haruhi turns to me, "I'm not scared of anything."

A man stops the wheel and all the carts swing in place while Haruhi and I sit on the red plastic cushion and the man snaps a guard bar shut across our laps. He steps back and pulls a lever, and the big diesel engine catches. The Ferris wheel jerks as if it's rolling backward, and Haruhi and I rise into the darkness.

Halfway up into the night, the wheel jerks to a stop. Our seat swings, and Haruhi makes a fast grab for the guard bar. I grin.

Not scared of anything, huh?

She just stares daggers at me.

Hey, don't get jumpy, we're here for fun, remember? You want some caramel corn?

I feel farther and farther away. Looking up, out of the colored lights and into the night sky, we're getting closer to the stars. Someone in the school I was forced to attend once said that stars are the best part of being alive. On the other side, where people go after they die, they can't see the stars. The deep outer space, the incredible cold and quiet. The heaven where silence is reward enough.

I look at Haruhi and realize what has to be done. No I realized that before, that's why I'm trying to get to her. To fix things. Because you can only fight spells with spells and beside her I don't know any magicians.

Anyway, we need to clean it all up. And pretty soon, before things get worse. The Espers. Time travelers. Aliens.

We have to fix it. All of it.

And Haruhi just looks into my eyes unable to hear my thoughts. We rise higher, farther away from the smells, away from the diesel engine noise. We rise up into the quiet and cold. All the crowds of people, their money and elbows and Santa hats, get smaller. The food booths and the portable toilets get smaller. The screams and Christmas music, smaller. At the top, we jerk to a stop. Our seat sways less and less until we're sitting still.

This high up, the breeze teases, rats, backcombs Haruhi's hair.

The neon and grease and snow, from this far away it all looks perfect.

Perfect, safe, and happy.

The music's just a dull thud, thud, thud.

And this is how we must look to God.

Looking down at the rides, the spinning colors and screams, Haruhi says, "I'm glad you understand me."

Huh?

She says, "I think I always hoped someone would."

"...I'm glad it's you."

Her jacket is light blue, but it's not a regular robin's-egg blue. It's the blue of a robin's egg you might find and then worry that it won't hatch because it's dead inside. And then it does hatch, and you worry about what to do next.

On the guard bar locked across us, Haruhi puts her hand on mine.

"Kyon..." she says and I look up at her. "What are we going to do now?"

That's not my name and you know it.

Holding out her other hand, Haruhi says, "Here."

And I take it. And she doesn't let go. And we kiss. And it's nice.

I pull back and see the stars behind her head form a strange ornament. The stars start to pulsate, beat.

I place my hand to her throat pretending to hold her romantically and find her neck's carotid artery. The heartbeat of the stars behind her is set to almost but not quite perfect time with her own pulse. I do not feel reassured.

And Haruhi says, "From now on, we can do anything." She says, "Anything."

I tell her that perhaps what the world really needs is to be left alone.

And Haruhi smiles locking her arms around my neck and says, "Oh Kyon, if you could just hear yourself."

We kiss, and she peels off my jacket. We kiss, and I open the zipper of her jacket. My jacket, her jacket and blouse. I'm touching something I never believed I would.

Here I am, somewhere I never dreamed I'd ever be, I say, I'm falling in love.

And Haruhi, blazing smooth and hot in the center of the light the stars give, she smiles and rolls her head back, saying, "That's the idea."

I'm in love with her. In love. With Suzumiya Haruhi... God, please... have a mercy on my pathetic soul.

Then again, it doesn't seem I'm falling to the dark side or anything. But, still...

And the seat jerk into motion again.

I look at Haruhi and she looks up at me and smiles, "What?"

Your eyes. They're brown. I never really noticed before.

And this is my life.

At the bottom, the carnival man snaps open the guard bar and I give Haruhi my hand as she steps out of the seat. The snow is loose and soft, and we limp and stumble through the crowds, holding each other around the waist. Passing one booth, Haruhi stops us, and the man behind counter asks: _What will it be?_

"Time for some caramel corn," Haruhi says, flashing her teeth. "Takeshi, here, is going to buy."

And I can't help but laugh.

Some things never change.

Well, not like I can do anything about it. After the carnival I take Haruhi to her house and she says we should do something like this again and pretty soon. Then she kisses my cheek and runs into her house. I don't protest, it's my job to obey isn't it? After that I go home. On my way home I meet two dogs sniffing at something in the snow. One looks up at me and growls, I kick a rock in their direction. I get home, unlock the door and Mom tells me to take out garbage, I take it out and meet Taniguchi outside. He's out on his way to a blind date. We chat for a while about what happened. I don't talk about my progress in the relationship I have with Suzumiya. When I get back my sister irritates our cat and it scratches my hands, it's not that bad but it hurts. I listen to a baseball game on the radio and do my math homework. I watch evening news with my parents and shed sarcastic remarks over the news like there's no tomorrow. Later in the evening my parents, probably tired of me, say I still need to rest and send me to bed. I change and make my bed. I set alarm on my phone and go to sleep.

And I have a dream.

In it I am Phil Marlowe and I am having sex with a goat that was fed with glass shards and barbed wire and don't see it weird at all.

I'm dating a God, there's nothing out there to surprise me anymore.

Now, this is my life.


End file.
